Nothing Can Stop It!

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by giulia.forsythe

Starring Sebastian Thrun and all those xMOOCS: Udacity, Coursera, EDx (because they are the ones that get all the attention) but produced, directed and thought about by George Siemens, Alec Couros, Dave Cormier, Stephen Downes.

Poster based on The Blob illustrated movie poster, aptly named Design Assignment 666 (number of the BEAST!!!)

I read some comments in the Openness in Education newsletter today about whether MOOCs should be feared by institutions because they threaten their financial viability.

Will MOOCs disrupt the regular university experience?

Hopefully!

At first I was offended, like BrainySmurf about the talk of monetization since that completely bastardizes the O part of Open. Monetizing MOOCs is NOT OPEN.
If some MOOCs start charging for certificates, etc, will we call them $MOOCs? Or just drop the “open”.$MOC ? #oped12 #TLTGmooc1#mooc

If some MOOCs start charging for certificates, etc, will we call them $MOOCs? Or just drop the "open". $MOC ? #oped12 #TLTGmooc1 #mooc

— ifrank (@ifrank) September 26, 2012

If MOOCs start making money they should call themselves University of Phoenix or any other university at this point for that matter.

The more I think about it, universities do have something to fear. But the monster is not the MOOC, however, the MOOC just one of the solutions to a problem that already exists.

The best thing to come out of the MOOC phenomenon is that people are talking about teaching, instructional strategies, and assessment. Lots of people.
Some of my favourite.
What Is A MOOC? @dkernohan @mweller @jonathan_worth @loumcgill @daveowhite [visual Notes]”>