Although the Internet has already transformed how we communicate, work and interact socially, its impact on formal education has been surprising limited. Parents of college students continue to pay exorbitant costs to enable their sons and daughters to attend colleges and universities where in person (F2F) lectures predominate. Professionals continue to attend expensive in person conferences to obtain continuing education credits.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) represent a relatively new Internet development with the potential to transform our educational paradigms.
Although the idea of moving classroom instruction and educational content to the web has existed since Al Gore (claims to have) invented the Internet, most educators and educational stakeholders have resisted the idea. More recently, MOOC companies such as Coursera, Udacity, and edX have expanded their participants and appear to be attracting significant investment and generating considerable growth.
S2KM recently became aware of MOOCs during a conversation about knowledge management with Dr. Martha Pollack, Vice Provost for Academic and Budgetary Affairs at the University of Michigan. Dr. Pollack, who previously served as Dean of the School of Information at the University at Michigan, specifically recommended Coursera.
Coursera is a social entrepreneurialship company that currently partners with Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania. Their online courses are free and open to anyone. Patrick Hindert, S2KM's author, has signed up to participate in a six week course taught by Dr. Charles Severance titled "Internet History, Technology and Security" which begins July 23, 2012.
What do MOOCs have to do with structured settlements and settlement planning? Currently nothing - other than to suggest the MOOC movement, if successful, could impact and improve professional as well as academic education. The need for improved education seems especially true for settlement planning on account of its relative complexity, changing legal and financial rules and multi-professional teams.
The Wikipedia entry for "Massive Open Online Courses" identifies several organizing principles for MOOCs including: aggregation; re-mixing; re-purposing; feeding forward; and connectivism. One of the earliest MOOC courses (2008) titled "Connectivism and Connective Knowledge" was taught by George Siemens and Stephen Downes.
Proponents of connectivism, according to Wikipedia, believe it represents a new theory of learning "based on the premise that knowledge exists in the world rather than in the head of an individual." Consequently, one aspect of connectivism is the use of social networks comprised of nodes and connections as a primary metaphor for learning.
As structured settlement and settlement planning leaders contemplate how to improve and grow their related markets, industry stakeholders might benefit from greater knowledge about MOOCs and might consider the following principles of connectivism as set forth in Wikipedia:
- "Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
- "Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
- "Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
- "Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
- "Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
- "Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
- "Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
- "Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision."
For information about structured settlements and knowledge management, see the structured settlement wiki.