Maria Bustillos, in a long piece in The Awl, brings some great clarity and perspective to the hype and bluster of the MOOC. This quote, from Aaron Bady, who recently touched off a storm with his piece on Inside Higher Ed, captures a bit of the flavor well:
The thing is, when you frame this as, “what does this give them for the rest of their lives?” one never really knows, and I think that’s the point; there is something, but it’s something we’re all discovering together. When we reduce education to job training; when we reduce it to, “we need X skills, so let’s do whatever causes X skill to come out,” you really close down all the possibilities.
Gravitropic 