Should 'real' students do an online course on the side?

Universities have started giving away their content free as "massive open online courses", with the satisfyingly ridiculous acronym mooc (I challenge you to say it three times with a straight face).
Eleven top UK universities recently announced they were joining the Open University to launch FutureLearn, in a bid to catch up with the elite US institutions that have led the way in teaching huge numbers online.
It all sounds great for people who, for one reason or another, can't go to a traditional university. But do moocs have anything to offer students already studying at a bricks-and-mortar institution? People like me, who hate the niggling feeling that they might be missing out on a bargain?
Well, I've signed up for a mooc in microeconomics. I did it because I'm thinking about whether to do a masters, and what to study. I'm testing my resolve: if I enjoy it enough to study in my own time, maybe I'm ready for masters. Better to find out before I hand over the money.
Why else would a university student consider a mooc? You could use it to boost CV – it shows you're motivated, you have a variety of interests and you're not struggling with your workload. Although before you sign up for 10 (I mean, they're free, right?) have a read of Leonie Veerman's blog on why you shouldn't live for your CV.
And before you can use an online course to help you get a job, employers have to learn what they are and respect them. University isn't just about what you learn but proving you know it. The only proof you did your mooc is that you clicked on "I promise not to cheat" on the honour code. This is changing though: one of the biggest mooc organisers, Coursera, is trialling facial recognition software to monitor students, and charging a small fee for verification.
Moocs are extra tuition from a different perspective. Dreading that compulsory class you know you'll suck at, the one with the 50% fail rate? Mooc to the rescue. Free preparation: better than failing and suffering the consequences to your grade point average and student loan.
Do moocs pose a threat to old school universities? Should we fear that, before we've even paid them off, traditional university degrees will go the way of floppy disks?
Probably not. As Patrick McGee writes, they are a long way from ready to replace traditional degrees. A mooc v trad uni mega-battle to the death is unlikely – instead online courses offer another option on higher education's menu of delights.
Moocs still have teething problems. A Coursera course – oh so ironically about planning online courses – crashed recently, unable to cope with the thousands of students trying to join online discussions. Moocs are limited to subjects that can be assessed with multiple choice exams, marked automatically. Written any essays in your degree? Your professor's critique of them can't be replicated by a mooc – yet.
As for me, despite not making a single friend in a cohort of 37,000, I revelled in the chance to learn what I was interested in, on my own terms. Moocs are a new take on education – and we traditional university students needn't miss out.

Online education the way of the future

One might say that the advent of online education has been disruptive for higher education in California. One might also say that the advent of penicillin was disruptive for the practice of medicine.
More than 20 years ago, technology began to creep into my teaching. Ten years ago, I began to use electronics to present information in my classrooms and to allow students, even remote ones, to give me input during class.
Now, everything I say, present or draw during class is posted to the class website as it happens; any student with Web access can submit questions, suggestions or comments to me during my lectures. I love how dynamic my lectures have become with the varied opportunities for student input. I am hooked, and so are my students.
I keep reading articles about how education is due for the same catastrophic makeover that music, journalism and publishing have gone through. But online education didn't just suddenly spring up full-blown; we've been headed this way for years. We've been experimenting, evaluating and improving every step of the way.
University of California professors are incorporating technology into their teaching because they find it rewarding, efficient and effective. Indeed, two of my colleagues have set their sights on developing the best calculus class in the world - the best class, not just the best online class. It is the multifaceted, flexible and responsive nature of online presentation that makes them believe they can do it.
Developing a good, fully online class takes a lot of effort - it's like writing a book, or a symphony, or a major research paper. Although I have integrated technology into all my courses, I have yet to produce a fully online course. You might say I've been in training for the past decade, that I've been gathering data and experience in anticipation of making the leap.
But that's the point. Educators have so many options today. I mention this because sometimes when people talk about online education, the implication is that we are choosing between a small room where an instructor practices the Socratic method and a cold, two-dimensional course with little flexibility and no human contact.
I live in a warm, personalized middle ground that has evolved for not only my comfort and efficiency but also for the comfort, flexibility and elucidation of my students.
My students want the flexibility and the modes of learning afforded by online education - as long as they still have personal contact with someone helping them to incorporate new ideas.
I recently asked a class of about 200 students (some of whom were attending remotely) if they would like an online option for a required class that has a long waiting list, and many of them literally leaped to their feet and cheered. "What if the online class turned out to be very bad?" I asked. They looked at me, looked at each other, and then asked if I really thought they had never encountered a "very bad" course in a face-to-face classroom.
There are good and bad ways to do anything. Simply being available on a computer is not enough to make a course good. We have a lot of evidence that any educational experience that feels impersonal will be less effective than one that feels personal.
How do we make sure that students get the optimum amount of human attention? We need more study. We need more evaluation. We need to make sure that students don't just like their classes but that they really learn the material as well as or better than they could from a traditional class.
Online courses may not be for everyone, and they may not be appropriate for every topic. Right now, many of my colleagues believe that online versions of introductory courses may provide solid preparation for the more intricate and delicate dance of upper-division classes.
Those of us who care about teaching and are proud of how we do it are working hard to embrace the future for the benefit of ourselves, our students and the people of California.

Online Education May Make Top Colleges More Elite, Speakers Say

Online education may have arrived at the upper echelons of higher education, but it's not going to make elite colleges any cheaper to attend.
Massive open online courses and other online tools, however, may change many aspects of top undergraduate campuses. That was the conclusion of a private summit, held here on Monday and sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, at which many of online education's heaviest hitters discussed the future of residential higher education, particularly at elite institutions, in a digital age.
After years of standing by while the online wave gathered momentum at lower-tier institutions, MIT and Harvard last year gave online education a $60-million bear hug by collaborating to found edX, a nonprofit MOOC provider that could also serve as a laboratory for studying the dynamics of virtual classrooms.
The universities made it clear then that they intended to use their MOOCs to improve, not supplant, traditional courses.
Monday's daylong conference, which was largely off the record except when permission was granted, featured many of the voices commonly associated with the current upheaval in higher education. They included Clayton M. Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor, who gave a crash course in his influential theory of "disruptive innovation"; and Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, an online-lecture repository, who appeared, Oz-like, as a 12-foot-tall talking head projected on the wall above the stage.
Online tools that track how much students use certain course materials could give professors insight into how they should design their traditional courses, several panelists said.
Professors might be surprised by what the data tell them. Eric Mazur, a professor of physics at Harvard, drew murmurs from the crowd—which mostly consisted of Harvard and MIT faculty members—when he showed research indicating that students at a lecture have brain activity roughly equivalent to when they watch television.
Eric S. Rabkin, a professor of English at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, suggested that professors could direct students to learn the most basic material in a course at their own pace, via online modules. Professors could then use the time saved, he said, on the parts of the course that require more thoughtful, individual attention, such as giving feedback on long essays.
"Maybe we could have 100 people register for a seminar," Mr. Rabkin said. The students could work through the first 12 weeks independently and online, "and that teacher can finish the seminar five different times in the course of a 15-week semester, spending the last three weeks with each of those groups of 20."