[hessproject]

Many MOOCs are beginning to address the "expertise" and "other students" issues that the article mentions.

For example, in my spare time I've been taking music production and gamedev courses. In both cases, the courses are still at your own pace, but they provide official ways to contact the instructors and they respond within 24 hours, and they also provide either a discord/slack channel or a facebook group for sharing/pairing/asking questions with other students.

While I'm typically the 10% completion type of student the article mentions, I've found both provided forms of communication to be very helpful in keeping me motivated to work through the courses. When I get stuck on a concept I can take a break and reach out to the instructors, and I find the ability to share and see others music/games gives me some inspiration to continue learning and working.