At the turn of the 21st century and following the momentous rise of digital technology, the realm of education has been flooded with a surge of disruptive innovations destined to transform learning and usher in a new era of proficiency, effectiveness, and efficiency. Along with a wave of groundbreaking technologies that dramatically changed the world of education have come Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
The future of education is online
In an era where everything from buying products to learning new things occurs online, the world of education is advancing at an unprecedented rate and is introducing cutting-edge concepts like MOOCs. Indeed, the online learning industry is growing, and recent rising figures years are proof. As per recent research, the number of students enrolling in online courses increased by more than 5 percent from the last two years.
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MOOCs – taking off?
MOOCs, a technological revolution that took the world by storm in 2012, have heralded many opportunities for students, who reap the benefits of ease and convenience. The development of MOOCs has significantly impacted the skills acquisition and development process of students around the globe. Increased accessibility to off-the-grid educational resources through MOOCs is working as a springboard to success for a growing number of students, particularly in emerging countries.
Combine this with the fact that some MOOCs boast up to 11 million students, it goes without saying that digital technology is contributing its fair share to the global education and literacy drive. The MOOC landscape has grown to include more than 500 MOOC-based credentials, 9400 courses, and over a dozen graduate degrees. According to recent research, around 20 million new learners signed up for their first MOOC in 2017.
Going beyond schools: the corporate world
MOOCs are certainly not limited to just higher education. In fact, they have efficaciously entered the world of corporate, helping companies to expand their organizational training options. Indeed, companies have been embracing MOOCs for a range of functions, including corporate training, recruiting and even marketing. Rather than limiting the innovation to the learning department, companies today tend to create a partnership with MOOCs providers including Coursera, Udacity, and edX to develop a series of self-paced courses.
MOOCs’ universal nature is vital to their existence. Bringing them into a corporation’s learning department certainly means considering the context of training as well as the content.
MOOCs are ultimately taking over the world
The rise of Massive Open Online Courses has inevitably been heralded as one of the most noteworthy developments in education in recent times. MOOCs offer a wide range of courses that anyone can find, register and begin anywhere and at any time. They can run the gamut from short classes designed for lifelong learners to more intensive options resembling traditional university courses. Although MOOCs do not provide credit towards a degree, they can be tremendously convenient tools for career advancement.
Many institutions are opening the virtual doors to learners in the form of MOOCs in conjunction with online learning platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and edX. The word ‘massive’ can be taken in the sense that more than 100,000 learners are afforded open and equal opportunities to attend these courses at the same time. And what makes MOOCs a tremendous technological revolution is that they come at virtually no cost.
Today, MOOCs providers offer most of their content for free as a trial offer, and then charge for higher-end accreditation or a more comprehensive integrated offering. Consequently, learners get to try out a course, learn something, and then decide later how much they want to pay. It is no wonder that MOOCs have been lauded as potential game-changers.
