[proveanegative]

I think it is only a matter of time until MOOCs start eating into high school and even middle school-level education. Considering that many adults do not remember their high school experience fondly it will be a welcome alternative.

[pistle]

Snake oil salespeople jumped into moocs and have pushed their ascendancy back by years. They, presently-generally work great for a specific set of people, but don't yield sufficiently effective results for broad groups. Check out the research thus far. It's not as engaging and lacks the habit-forming that drives people to complete and compete for high marks in areas which aren't in alignment with the interests of the student.

For mature learners focusing on a topic of interest, great. For young learners build a general foundation, not so much. Now, it's a different conversation to cover curriculum, but that's not of MOOC's concern.

And, to wit, "adults not recollecting fond experiences" is double-edged. There are few other times in people's lives where they are essentially forced to rub shoulders with such a cross-section of their culture. These experiences do afford experience in cross-pollination which have positive benefits as much as they cause angst for participants. If parents are able to shield their kids from "others" a certain solipsism is a consequence. During formative years, there is a value to broad cultural experience that should be balanced with providing a safe and nurturing environment for the primary task of learning.

[firebones]

How would one go about designing a "how to learn mooc"? I'm serious.

If you think about it, a lot of why employers require college degrees is that it vets many life skills around being organized and having it together enough to earn a degree. Factor that out and you have MOOCs for the knowledge * the life skills. So the life skills themselves (such as meeting deadlines, working in groups, showing up on time regularly, learning how to learn, etc.) would have to become some hybrid of MOOC for study habits and a long-running college-experience LARP for the social interaction.

[pistle]

Good point on personal management being something employers value generically by someone completing a degree. Then again, I also know enough people who don't have all that together even with a degree.

If the question is more along the lines of how can a MOOC be part of the effective development of a desirable, hire-able person, then this is a big discussion.

There are all sorts of areas needing review. What's a cost-optimized way to get to a balanced personal portfolio that looks good on paper (resume)? Do resumes matter when performance can speak volumes (your github repo, your stack-exchange + hacker news profile, your start-up you did in high school?

Beyond that, are those things true indicators of appeal for hiring HR/recruiters, managers, peers during interviews?

Is all of this actually helpful in estimating the likelihood of positive performance? It's all very hazy. Each thing bodes well, in ways, for the total, but most people are flawed, to some degree, if measured by other people. Myers-Briggs type personality profiling is rough pigeon-holing, but there is an underlying truth somewhere that different people will just resonate or "dissonate" with each other. Maybe one of the most effective things a person can develop, beyond their fundamental knowledge and technical acumen, is the ability to empathize with other people; to be able to bridge those personality divides.

That brings me back to how there are few better environments, potentially, to get hands-on experience in navigating personality and culture difference than well-integrated schools.

[prodmerc]

I gotta say that EdX and Coursera are amazing - so many things to learn (often for free, but even the paid courses are relatively cheap). Stuff that is better than what our best schools/colleges/unis provide. I'm really grateful for what they're doing.