In the early days, Coursera was transformative. I took some amazing courses and learned a lot.
...but the vision was always automation and as courses were rerun, the instructors were more likely to be disengaged, and live interaction via the forums fell. Finally when courses went to ongoing enrollment, there were no longer cohorts, and the experience was a correspondence course.
So in the end it was not transformative. It is pretty much just Youtube plus a website plus a payment platform. A less expensive, less interactive, unaccredited version of Phoenix University.
There's nothing wrong with teachers getting paid. It is the standard model. But of course the standard model is the standard model, not transformative.
In the early days, Coursera was transformative. I took some amazing courses and learned a lot.
...but the vision was always automation and as courses were rerun, the instructors were more likely to be disengaged, and live interaction via the forums fell. Finally when courses went to ongoing enrollment, there were no longer cohorts, and the experience was a correspondence course.
So in the end it was not transformative. It is pretty much just Youtube plus a website plus a payment platform. A less expensive, less interactive, unaccredited version of Phoenix University.
There's nothing wrong with teachers getting paid. It is the standard model. But of course the standard model is the standard model, not transformative.