Le Monde, the French daily newspaper, recently discussed in an article the French mania with MOOCs. A few weeks after its launch, the French MOOC platform FUN had already registered 226,000 students. The ‘best (non) seller’ among the 30 MOOCs on offer is ‘From Manager to Leader‘, with 36,000 registered students and a 20% completion rate. Its author, Cecile Dejoux, a teacher at CNAM, qualifies this success as a complete – yet pleasant – surprise: a serendipity!
The PISA results released last week (see my last entry) tell us about the urgent need to transform our education systems in most European countries.
We must now decide whether this much needed innovation can be brought about from inside the system, or if it must be the result of a “disruptive” process led by committed individuals and “education entrepreneurs” from all over Europe.
My conviction is that education practitioners, technology geeks and web entrepreneurs will be determinant to change. They have the ability and willingness to invent tools, content and devices that will benefit learners and trainers, alongside students and teachers. For the first time, technology seems robust and user-friendly enough to enable real innovation in the classroom.
But what kind of innovations are desirable, and for what kind of learning?