MOOC Brigade: With Free Online Learning Classes, Guilt Is Part of the Bargain - Brad Tuttle, Time

By the time the seventh e-mail about coursework and assignments arrives in my in-box, the guilt is too much to take. The online class I signed up for started on Sept. 17, and as the unopened emails pile up from Coursera, I haven’t watched a single lecture or done any work. But hey, having the flexibility to take in lectures at whatever pace you please is one of the attractions of such courses. The fact they’re free is another. In any event, it’s time to buckle down. Everyone in higher education is obsessed with MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) these days, and taking one sounded like a good idea. Whenever the local community college mails out the latest list of classes that are open to the public, I always find something that is not only interesting but also somehow “good” for me—maybe Woodworking, Web Design Basics, or Advanced Gardening. I should take that, I find myself saying. http://nation.time.com/2012/10/02/mooc-brigade-with-free-online-classes-guilt-is-part-of-the-bargain/