Serendipity35

Currently, MOOCs are largely being used to teach academic courses in some of the largest universities. They are also being used by individuals for lifelong learning unrelated to attaining a degree. But research and exploratory offerings are being done to see whether they can be used for introductory-level or material in community colleges and high schools and for training in the corporate sector.

The University of Miami via its UM Global Academy launched in November 2012 what it called the first free MOOC for high school students. It was a three-week, six-session class that will prepare students for the SAT subject test in biology.

Wake Tech Community College (North Carolina) claims to be the first community college to offer a MOOC in spring 2013. It is a developmental math course in pre-algebra and beginning algebra in a modular format. There is no instructor; students navigate the material at their own pace and monitor their own progress through directed self-assessments.

As with online learning and other areas, businesses will learn from what academia does with MOOCs, and we will learn from businesses.

If you look at MOOCs from a corporate perspective, it makes sense for some version of this type of training to occur. In fact, many corporations with a global reach already train thousands of employees online. That training is obviously not open in any sense of that term, but they are massive online training efforts. Will their "MOTs" become MOOCs? I doubt that. But what both groups learning about improving learning by large groups working in an online environment is important.

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