Are 'MOOCS' the future of higher education?

Let me start with a disclaimer. I am a graduate of the Open University. Teaching standards there were excellent. One never felt isolated even though it was delivered through distance learning. Perhaps most importantly the courses undertaken were always interesting. So when a new venture in distance learning begins or is beginning to take off it fascinates me and part of me instinctively gravitates towards supporting it.

The OU is just one of 23 HE institutions that have launched 'Futurelearn' based around free access to their courses for anybody to enrol in, the eponymous MOOCS (massive online open courses).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24109190

The question is, is this the way forward and if it is, is that a good thing?

Critics suggest that they miss the point of university life. The teaching is there, but it is dry and not brought to life in the way it can be in person. Nor does the student get the University lifestyle experience. Added to this is the factor of the potential for a very high drop out rate. Many do sign up for new courses online but many also drop out.

Let me address that last point first. In some ways it's actually a positive for a student. They can try a course, for free, and if discovering its not for them, drop out without financial penalty. At the same time they will have experienced, however briefly, a level of teaching from a institution they may never have considered. Perhaps they will try several courses before settling on one. The point is that they can.

As to the suggestion that courses are less vibrant, this underplays the ability of the institutions involved to deliver entertaining learning in the digital age. There are many ways to involve and engage people on these courses.

My greatest overriding concern would be if these courses were looked at to replace degrees. They cannot offer the same depth of learning and experience perhaps. What they can offer though is access and opportunity and a broadening of intellectual experience and that can only be a good thing.

We do not know how far MOOCS will go or how successful they will be. As an OU alumnus however I can only say that their involvement encourages only confidence and optimism on my behalf.

                                                  

The historian as storyteller.

In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/herodotus.html#3It7xpozRKGKFgI8.99

Above is a great, thought provoking quote from Herodotus. It is one amongst many as you will see if you follow the link.  Whatever your opinion of him as a historian Herodotus was a great storyteller. This art, the craft and guile to write interesting, captivating things still must lie at the heart of the historian's arsenal. They, of course, must be empirical in their approach to evidence and how they interpret it. That is the science of history.

The real creativity though may come in the presentation of interpretation. It is no good writing a perfectly accurate but tedious account of your field. Nobody will read it! It is equally unworthy to write an entertaining but inaccurate account.

The balance must be struck between creativity and accuracy. This is where the historian must be a storyteller. In a way this is inevitable. Whatever interpretation of the past a historian constructs and presents is their personal narrative of events. For example, taking the same facts, one historian may present the actions of Richard III as particularly cruel and opine that the evidence favours his murdering the princes in the tower. Yet another historian my analyse the same facts and decide Richard was no worse than other monarchs of the era and that the evidence against him for these murders is, at best, highly circumstantial. It is a this point that having analysed and filtered the same evidence to reach different conclusions that they present their version of events. This is the heart of their storytelling.

Recreating the past and interpeting the data needs intuition and a mental capacity to connect the gaps in that data. Some might argue that more recent events are better documented and thus less story telling is required. One would contest this as even in daily life we can see different narratives applied to events. You need only look at the front of two daily newpapers, say 'The Guardian' and 'The Telegraph' to see the same story interpreted in completely differing ways.

So to conclude, the historain must be a storyteller if they want to get their ideology and interpretation noticed. If, like Herodotus they want to be long remembered, then they must be a GREAT storyteller!

The problem with counterfactual history

"What if?" can be one of the most leading and intriguing questions any historian can ask. For example what if Henry Viii's older brother hadn't died? would England still inevitably have become a protestant state and when might this have happened. Or, as another example, what if the USA had elected not to drop the atom bomb on Japan? would WW2 inevitably have dragged on claiming many many more lives than this act did as some like to claim?

The possibilities, the intrigue and the debates that can stem from such thinking are limitless. It even seems like a good exercise. it helps us to think laterally. It also helps us to fully understand that historical outcomes were never inevitable. There are always nebulous and complex possibilities before the actual events occur.

The question is though, how worthwhile, beyond being a curious intellectual exercise is all this? Surely the biggest glaring problem at the heart of counterfactualism is the absence of empiricism. how can one base an argument on data which may not represent the actual occurrences of the time. As soon as one proposes 'what if?' then we have moved away from the facts and it is difficult to apply any documentation or records from the time to potentially different situations to which they never related.

The point is the further away from the data one gets, the more reliant you become on speculation. Interesting and intellectually stimulating but not empirically accurate. this is not the kind of historiography an empiricist would want to pursue surely?

Another danger is that once historians postulate a hypothesis they will start applying the model of their ideas to the historical data retrospectively. Perhaps innocently applied this is still dangerous. Now we can see the application of a concept being pushed and an alternate time line created, all fabricated from the model the historian proposes. Yet how can this fit the data which shows another outcome?

I am far from asserting that we do not want to see imaginative applications brought to history. Simply that that imagination should be applied rigorously to creating a satisfying and stimulating narrative and opinion built on a basis of solid data.