Sliced Bread

George Siemen’s recently asked What’s wrong with (M)OOc’s?

Stephen Downes as only he can states;

 The people who are disconnected, unskilled and drop out are people who have spent their entire lives being given content on a platter to memorized, and we don’t do it that way. I think our approach is the right approach, but that it will take time to establish as something like the norm.

Red is right and I’m curious.

Would (M)OOc’s be any more successful with self organised learners drawn from non traditional non-institutional backgrounds? Those from a clean slate un-schooled environment who did not have to unlearn previous potentially inefficient ways of learning?

Specifically I’m thinking about Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the Wall.  Would these successful self organised “graduates” have  fundamentally different experiences to successful institutional learners in a (M)OOC?

The greatest learning gains will be made in the places of greatest disadvantage.  Who wants it more.

As Deloitte and Chief of Confusion John Seely-Brown states;

“Simply put, our institutions are fundamentally broken”.

Pull not push, intrinsic  not extrinsic, us not them will be the future of learning. As Stephen said, this norm will take time.

Maybe ROI on the incremental top of the exponential scale is not worth pursuing, for the educational entrepreneurs emerging.

Instead should OOC learning turn its principal focus to distributed equity in the places of greatest disadvantage?

Candidates may well be more responsive for themselves, especially if rigorous self crafted assessment dashboards are credentialled by their own data exhaust.

Anyone else keen to learn how to fish?