Will MOOCs Destroy Academia? (2012)

cacm.acm.org

19 points·theanonymousone··7 comments

I’ve learned plenty of things over the years by taking MOOCs.

It has not increased my employability or compensation in the slightest.

Of course a person that is motivated to learn something is better of using Mooc or self study than just copying whatever the teacher says as notes. They try to prevent kids from self study too by putting something in those notes that they won't see via self study so they will show up to the class. The whole structure has been flawed for a long time. But they have had a solution and that is the ability to supply certificates and degrees while self study won't deliver that.

Obviously the dam is not going to hold and it will eventually break when the incomes from most of those degrees will not materialize. The clock is ticking..

As someone who is writing a university course that is allowing the use of AI, I think that the value of an in-person education is underestimated. I reckon that a solid chunk of what you are taught in a good university environment is soft in some sense, and that technical knowledge is less valuable than it was as compared to technical ability. The knowledge problem is what MOOCs (and any open resources) solve. I am not sure that technical ability is fostered by MOOCs as much as it is merely enabled by them.

(2012), and one prior discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5318644 - March 4, 2013 (62 comments)

That discussion happened way before the MOOC enthusiasm died.

"Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!"

Unfortunately a lot of government meddling in education and industry has continued to prop up academia as we know it, however maybe it will be different "this time" with AI

Reply on news.ycombinator.com