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Online education - good value


Have read Move over MOOCs this morning.

Interesting article, but it looks lacking of a more thorough research and only mentions two startups in the online education area. I have been studying with MOOCs for more than a year now and have completed a handful of free courses at Coursera from leading education providers like Stanford University, University of London, Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, Wesleyan University etc.

The courses format is lectures, quizzes, homework, assignments etc. It's definitely helpful.

I indeed enjoyed some of them related to law and economics and social psychology from Wesleyan, law from London university, and Wharton MBA related courses. I personally have only got a limited timeframe to spend on studies so the courses I mentioned fit very well into my schedule. Others require a bit more time to do homework and reading or were not well prepared for the online format therefore I couldn't complete those. However I got a decent knowledge in some areas which I wouldn't be able to achieve with traditional model, because the MOOCs are more flexible and allow me to choose only what I need at the time I am available for it and free.
It is indeed a great opportunity to expand the knowledge in areas that would otherwise require significant effort and investment without any predictable return. I can state that this is a great invention of the recent years.

Have you tried any yourself?

Don't think at the moment it can compete with traditional education, but that's only because current rules of the job market in different professions require entry level based on traditional education system. Which in it's own as a system was built on apprenticeship institutes many centuries ago and allowed business leaders of that time to control and plan properly.

However today we see our reality changing. With these changes we will see natural shift in educational delivery methods.
In regards to MBA, my opinion is that classical MBA programs are not just for knowledge, but also for networking, ideas sharing and creating communities of alumni students. All this of course is achievable online, however in the enterprise or a "proper business" world mentality which was nurtured since centuries ago when universities appeared as a result of apprenticeship system for industries - it is still highly demanded that the education should be in person at the brick and mortar institute/university.

As far as I see now majority of organisations don't see much value in free online courses, but it's only for now - possibly too early and too scary to trust this new way of studies. However I believe this is the significant part of future of education. 
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