MOOCS, ARE THEY A REAL ALTERNATIVE TO CLASSROOM TEACHING?

The MOOCs (Massive Online Open Course) are online courses, which are mainly for higher education level. These courses present an interesting evolution in the distance learn methods. The MOOCs do not replace the current universities, but they can be a good complement to the curriculum. The MOOCs are more fashionable than ever. Most of the most prestigious universities have platforms which offer online courses. Thus, students from anywhere in the world can access to the training courses which are taught by experts worldwide. Many of you teachers who teach these courses belong to internationally renowned universities: Stanford, MIT, Harvard ... This teaching model has great benefits, the learning rate is adapted to the student, so he decides what to do and when. In addition, the MOOCs are usually free, online teaching and the only truly important requirement is that the students must have interest in the subject that is being offered. So, the geographic and economic barriers disappear with MOOCs. The flexibility provided by these platforms is also one of its biggest problems because it makes that students do not take it seriously. So, it is common that students leave the course for weeks and then they forget what they have done at beginning. Furthermore, the workload is higher than greater than the advertised at the beginning of the course and then it is very difficult to match it with other activities.