E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

Last monday MIT and Harvard organised an seminar on MOOCs. The official title was "Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education". Anka attended the conference on behave of the TU Delft. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was one of the speakers at the seminar and has written an very good article about the seminar:

We demand that plumbers and kindergarten teachers be certified to do what they do, but there is no requirement that college professors know how to teach. No more. The world of MOOCs is creating a competition that will force every professor to improve his or her pedagogy or face an online competitor.

The column is an interesting read. I especially lik the last sentence:

When outstanding becomes so easily available, average is over.