MOOC and Opinion...

Enrollment Builders

"MOOC" is the fast-becoming acronym for "massive open online courses." It is an outcrop from the old snail mail study-at-home courses, strangely championed by universities in the early Twentieth Century for the same reason: additional income.

Old school: you only need a mailbox.

21^st Century: you only need a high-speed Internet connection.

We've gone from the gold standard to ones and zeros, but the mantra (borrowing from the esteemed "Biggie Smalls") could be "more money, more cred" (credentials).

The problem is like the dot com bust in the 90s: anybody can throw up a web site and become an online learning center, even when your "university" is in a rented office park.

I'm currently in an online class now by a reputable brick-and-mortar university, technically not a "MOOC" and rather pricey. I had to adjust my expectations from my 80s face-to-face experiences with instructors to email.

The initial book and subject matter of my Masters - Microelectronics and Photonics - is essentially what I did as a Device Engineer; my interests and thus far my career has mostly been semiconductors. I find the problems challenging enough but not too difficult to where I've ever panicked solving them (embed of a recent homework example below). Of course, never say never...

I have stored in memory a lot of the practical examples from previous lab experiences: being on an oscilloscope to read integrated circuit parameters either in die or packaged form; room, hot or cold temperature extremes.

I therefore wouldn't recommend MOOC as a stand-alone-only panacea for our current national standing preparing students for STEM occupations.

Opinion: Humans evolved with five senses, and pedagogy rightly targets visual, auditory and kinesthetic stimuli. Education can inform as well as transform, changing the trajectory of lives to more positive ends. It is not merely a commodity or Laissez faire bottom-line as so much in the public sphere has alarmingly become. For a functioning democracy and thinking, rational citizenry, it is this social contract that is an integral part of "the common good."

Education is more social than an Internet connection, and we are by far a social species.

Technology Review: The Crisis in Higher Education

EE PEP507 HW 3