In this age
of self-directed learning it seems everyone is jumping on the MOOC bandwagon.
Who can blame them? The opportunity to learn in the terabyte world of the web is
available at the fingertips of anyone with a laptop and an internet connection.
But universal access to great thinking is certainly not new. Excite came on the
scene in 1993… Yahoo began connecting us in 1994… and the Google revolution has
been fulfilling our need for information since 1998. In fact, “Google’s mission
is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and
useful.” What can be more MOOC-like than that?
Is Google
the next MOOC? The concept of the massive open online course is relatively new
in distance learning, but only in its current iteration. Google is a search
engine that meets three of the four criteria to be a MOOC. Google is massive.
It has created algorithms and tools that organize a seemingly infinite amount
of information on the web. Google is open. It is free and available to users
worldwide, easy to use, and provides open access to content on virtually any subject.
Google is online, obviously. However, Google is not a course. So, can it be a
MOOC?
In our
evolution from teacher-directed to self-directed learning, what exactly is a
course? While there is some disruption to this concept, MOOC’s are still very
traditional in scope and feel. However, with a little creativity, Google can be a course… in
fact, it has already ventured into this area with its Advanced Power
Searching course. But this is only the beginning. For those who want to
learn almost anything, the information is available. When higher education institutions,
and more importantly the companies that hire graduates, begin to accept life
experience and self-directed learning as adequate substitutes for traditional
courses, Google will become a course in the broadest sense. All that will
remain is competency and this can be determined by performance outcomes.
