Hajera Blagg points up a logical link between the gathering momentum behind the MOOC and the notion of radical social entrepreneurship. In a post entitled: ‘A classroom of thousands’: Disrupting entrepreneurial education with Massive Open Online Courses she writes:
If MOOCs become a more common way of learning, then MOOC students who have understood the learning process to be dynamic and collaborative will bring this mindset to their own projects. Learning communities (and sub-communities) emerge naturally from the MOOC process. These endeavors are likely to be more inclusive and socially-oriented, with the goal being advancement in the name of the common good.
By treating education as a massively open, collaborative process, MOOCs have the potential to spread a disruptive entrepreneurial philosophy through their classrooms of thousands.
There are MOOCs and MOOCs (see, for instance, Tony Bates on Coursera-type MOOCs, or Stephen Downes’ differentiation between what he terms xMOOCs and cMOOCs) but Hajera clearly understands that it is the learners themselves who will determine what they are able to take away from their participation in a MOOC.
There’s a risk of a circular argument here: those who go into a MOOC with an open and collaborative approach will be more likely to appreciate the ‘disruptive entrepreneurial philosophy’ that can come out of the experience. But I would hope that some people who go into MOOCs carrying traditional baggage, expecting a top-down model, or looking for traditional credentialing, for example, might come to realise that their baggage is redundant, at which point they could well begin to understand the full power of the MOOC.
There’s an infographic on the MOOC appended to the post too.
[…] MOOCs are run and managed under social entrepreneurship, then I wonder what MOOC would look like? Radical social entrepreneurship sounds innovative and […]