I had very positive experience with online courses on edx, courser, alison and others. I was impressed. I liked so many things about it, its global multicultural scale, its credibility, its altruistic approach etc. and its possibility to engage you at any time without any boundaries. I think that schools and universities should have moocs option for passing exams and that all educational system should be changed because this new technology have possibility to engage everyone better and to develop society and spread knowledge much quicker. The question is how to organize it and how to win against inertia of old and "proven"?
If someone wants to collaborate on a research paper on this topic, I would be very glad.
Educational science? To me, a fundamental issue in educational research is that it is a *social* science, which acknowledges human phenomena and leaves "proof" much less certain since the contexts and variables are innately tied so social and individual diversity.
Neil Selwyn has done some amazing work on attempting to tease out rhetoric versus research, and I would encourage anyone interested in educational technology to browse his impressive list of publications. Many link from his web page: https://monash.edu/education/research/profiles/profile.html?sid=4146047&pid=7413
Laura Elisabeth Pinto, thank you for your answer. Are you saying that there is no such thing as educational science, that there is only educational sociology which is not exact science, and can not be, but has to adapt to current historical events? Well, even in that case, I think its time for big change and it is very easy to see which are top schools and universities in the world: those who allow and have on-line courses, all others are slaves of past. Others are too much in the present without any vision for the future. Change in education and a new paradigm in educational science is also a political and ideological question because education right now has a goal to keep things as they are. If educational system wants positive changes, it has to be positively changed. The future might see our ages as dark ages of education, or I hope as time of transition and enlightenment.
My point was not educational sociology, but education as a social science (there are many social sciences, sociology is but one!). When we frame education as science, it narrows possibilities and methods of inquiry to those in the positivist tradition.
Of course, change and progress are important - but as you point out, these concepts are qualitative in nature (you mention political and ideological, and I agree). Change must be well-considered. "Too many accounts of tradition, positive and negative alike, rely on contrastive force, so that tradition is defended (or condemned) as against modernity, progress, change, or some similar forward-facing value" (Mark Kingwell, 2014, p. 7). "...Progress, for example, has been the cover and clothes of the worst depredations against human spirit and freedom, not least in its aspirations to an ideal state." In this latter point, he is referring to the slaves (quite literally - including humans trafficked and indentured labour) of present-day "innovation" in the name of progress.
Like you, I have enjoyed online learning both as learner and teacher, but I have have also witnessed the worst of online learning as well. It's no panacea. Why, for example, have much-heralded MOOCs had mixed results (a recent study said they only have about a 7.5% pass rate!). What happens when online learning becomes what Freire refers to as transmission or banking models of learning (which many have been reduced to)?
I urge you (again) to read Neil Selwyn's work, especially the paper about the need for pessimism. For the record, Selwyn is pro-technology, but questions the unbridled, uncritical enthusiasm that punctuates much of the popular discourse. Unless we take a reasoned and critical approach, technology itself will not improve a thing - in fact, the majority of research on technology in education has yielded mixed results at best in terms of user achievement, learning, etc. (again, see Selwyn, Hattie, etc. for how and why this is the case).
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