“It does not strike me that we are getting the biggest educational bang for our limited educational buck by educating the educated” (TEDx Talks, 2014)
My research this week continued down the pathway of access to MOOCs. I was particularly struck by two TEDx talks that I watched on YouTube which gave opposing views on the platforms. Alex Cui spoke effusively about the virtues of MOOCs and they COULD and do offer to revolutionise education – the great equalising factor. Fiona Hollands (quote above) was less positive and gave a less optimistic appraisal of what MOOCs ACTUALLY do. A key theme in both talks was (in)equality. Cui sees MOOCs as the great equaliser, while Hollands believes they entrench inequality.
During the course of this unit, I’ve frequently come across both views. I’m a believer that education can be the great equaliser but fully accept that the status quo is not achieving this lofty aim – I see it every day of my life where I notice that my school goes above and beyond to provide an excellent education but the home life of our students is still the biggest indicator of future positive outcomes. Gallagher et al. (2019) write about educational marginalisation being exacerbated by technologies. I see this where we offer state of the art opportunities at school but our students don’t have the same access to technology, nor the expertise of helping parents, as the predominantly white middle-class school down the road for the eighteen hours per day that they are not with us.
I again starting exploring videos and articles that would help me understand this phenomenon. Even in the developing world, MOOCs are mainly accessed by highly educated people and I wanted to better understand the culture from which these MOOCs originate. Hodgson’s (2016) article was the most enlightening and I appreciated his linking, in the wider economy, inequality with inheritance. Rich people benefit from being born into the correct class, ethnicity and gender which then entrenches inequality. I can write anecdotally about when I first started investing in shares. My still very minimal portfolio makes a lot more money for me now than it did when I only had a few hundred dollars worth. Is this the same for education? Those who ‘inherit’ education are in the better position to access more at the exclusion of others. The system doesn’t easily allow the cycle to be broken.
Gallagher, M, Knox, J (2019), ‘Global technologies, local practices’, Learning, Media & Technology, 44 (3), pp225-234
Hodgson, G (2016), How capitalism actually generates more inequality: why extending markets or increasing competition won’t reduce inequality, Available at https://evonomics.com/how-capitalism-actually-generates-more-inequality/, Accessed 23 Feb 2020
TEDx Talks (2014), The future of the massive online open course, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZhtQMG91Kk, Accessed: 22 Feb 2020