Aaron Bady in Academic Matters, “The MOOC bubble and the attack on public education”:

And while MOOC-boosters like to deride the “sage on the stage” model of education-delivery–as if crowded lecture halls are literally the only kind of classroom there is–most of the actually-existing MOOCs being marketed today are not much more than a massive and online version of that very same “sage on the stage” model.

This is the ultimate irony in the new MOOC movement: they decry the elitism and lectures of the old model while essentially recreating those same structures in the new model. What’s the quote? “You become what you hate.”? Something like that…

University Ventures Fund, “Bad Judgment Magazine”:

The reality is that (1) instruction and interaction are critical to successful student outcomes and (2) the cost of instruction and interaction is not what makes higher education unaffordable.

On a basic level, if you don’t get this, you don’t get why online education isn’t going to save the world.

Ryan Koronowski and Joe Romm in ThinkProgress, “Exxon CEO: ‘What Good Is It To Save The Planet If Humanity Suffers?’”:

At Wednesday’s meeting for ExxonMobil shareholders in Dallas, CEO Rex Tillerson told those assembled that an economy that runs on oil is here to stay, and cutting carbon emissions would do no good.

He asked, ‘What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?’

File this under things you wish weren’t real.