A MOOC Primer by SEK
By Once upon a time I did one of these that proved so popular Insider Higher Ed promised to pay me $125 to reprint it at their place. And they did reprint it yes they did. But I digress: last night I was avoiding things I couldn’t change, but lacked the courage required to change the things I could, so instead I decided to write a primer summarizing my feelings about the MOOC phenomenon I’ve been reading so much about lately. It goes something like this:
A is for affordable, you too can attend!
B, the boredom of the automated emails that they send.
C is for the crowd-sourced marks you never can protest,
D, the comments you receive from Dr. Dispossessed.
E is for efficiency, you’ll learn much more and faster;
F, the mark you’ll earn from your anonymous headmaster.
G is for goals you’ll meet, should fleeting time permit;
H, the honey badger, who doesn’t give a shit.
I‘s for innovation, as the Internet is used;
J‘s the campus jobs “human appliances” will lose.
K is for “the kids,” for whom all this is done;
L, the learning process, endless lectures on re-run.
M is for the money that will soon begin to rain,
O for the obscenity of pipe dreams, most profane.
O‘s also for objectives and assessments by machines,
C, “collaboration,” ‘cross seas of dim-lit screens.
Q is for the questions never answered in a MOOC,
R for “really thoughtful answers” copied from a book.
S, the rare impoverished souls, who care enough to try,
T, the time spent wasted, “learning” from a turned blind eye.
U‘s for universities, who seek to monetize,
V, the vastness of the campus they’ve lobotomized.
W‘s for the wallet, slit wide and fit to pad,
X is the amount slipped in, the bills that feed the fad.
Y is for the questions time and space do not permit,
Z, the honey badger, who doesn’t give a shit.
NOTE: Editorial advice is always welcome, as deaf scansion tends to emphasize rhythm at the expense of everything else.