MOOCs, a critical view and an additional alternative: Personalized learning and pedagogical support

In this work we will review the nature of MOOCs. We will analyse the requirements and characteristics attributed to their creators and their best known versions. We will see whether educational profit is to be obtained, and in that case, identify it. Furthermore, we will examine whether MOOCs can really be considered an innovation. We will also see in what context they occur and identify viable alternatives. Our starting point will be the changes in the configuration and the basic characteristics of the Postindustrial Society of Knowledge, which has its main basis, organization and wealth in knowledge. We ask whether the nature of learning has changed and what the features that affect that change are. We conclude that the configuration of the emerging society makes for "value to be in the matrix, not in the issue," a fact rooted in MOOCs. The foundation of MOOCs lies in Connectivism, an epistemological system that provides insights into how certain phenomena of learning occur between connected, but lacks the nature and structure of a theory. The MOOCs we know lack instructional design and a methodology of their own. They are not evaluative or researchful. They can not be integrated into research where grades are used as the dependent variable, regardless of the independent variable.