<p>I have taken several of the MOOC courses. I took the Stanford AI class, the Udacity Programming a Robotic Car class, and I’m taking Coursera’s Probabilistic Graphical Models right now. I’ve loved them all and highly recommend them. </p>
<p>It turns out there is a lot of student interaction in those courses, mostly online but also face-to-face.</p>
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<p>this statement is apparently false.</p>
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<p>Well now. Funny you should say that, because I have experienced it. I just, fifteen minutes ago, finished up Udacity’s CS373, Programming a Robotic Car. I could watch the lectures whenever I wanted. If I didn’t understand something, I could stop the lecture or go back and watch the lecture again. Every few minutes there was a quiz, requiring me to check a box, compute some numeric answer, or write a computer program; these I could do at my own pace, and do them as many times as I needed to, until I could do them successfully. </p>
<p>If I didn’t understand something, I could go to the message forum, where thousands of other students would ask and answer questions, and where the TAs would weigh in if there seemed to be a common misconception.</p>
<p>We had weekly homeworks. We had a final exam. CS373 was pretty easy for me (though not for every one of the tens of thousands of students in the class) but nevertheless, I learned a lot and I’m happy about it. In fact, I did find it individualized.</p>
<p>Udacity’s model won’t work for every subject, but it works pretty darn well for some subjects. Having finished up the Udacity course, I’m now trying Coursera’s (nee Stanford’s) Probabilistic Graphical Models. It’s no cakewalk.</p>
<p>I don’t think MOOCs will solve every problem in education, but for what they can do, they’re terrific.</p>
<p>My daughter’s AP bio teacher is considering “flip teaching”, where he records a lecture as a Youtube video, or maybe an online Powerpoint/interactive presentation, or both. The students’ responsibility would be to watch the video and read corresponding texts as many time as they thought they needed. Then class time would be spend discussing, reviewing or going over tough problems or concepts. Less time wasted, more productive time in the classroom. I think it’s an intriguing concept.</p>
<p>IF there is an education bubble? 
it will burst, and the way we learn will change forever.</p>
<p>change is happening faster than I thought.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1334737-mit-harvard-announce-edx.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1334737-mit-harvard-announce-edx.html</a></p>