Maggie's Farm

What is in it for the math prodigy? Or any student who has taken ownership of his education through using online resources?

They will no longer need the "library" as anything contemporary of value will be online even the old stuff. What isn't can be bought through Amazon.

They won't need the "interaction" since anyone willing to really interact with them will do so online.

So why come to the university? For a stipend? To slow their learning down to the arbitrary class schedule set for the convenience of university employees?

I fear the professor cannot think critically about the impact of MOOCs and their impact once students stop thinking of education something done over the winter spread out over semesters.

I haven't taken a MOOC but from those writing about them, it doesn't seem they've really made the innovative transition. Most of the past attempts to stream classes, via TV and now online, mostly tried to stream the classroom. Seems to me that the real change will come when someone exploits the new medium for a new way to present the material. Khan Academy goes a long way to do this. We probably have enough players, who aren't dependent on the current scheme, for someone to takeover the business with a new way of doing things.

I would also expect we'll see the largest movement from those places where the MOOCs, etc. are fulfilling a real need rather than just refining a current product. Sure there's savings to students in the US, perhaps elsewhere in the developed world. But what about the developing world, say Africa, rural India, where computers and online are moving into the countryside and there isn't a "traditional" university. That is where we'll see the MOOCs put to the most innovative use.