Online masters programs might still be quite unusual, in most cases students need to be present physically at least part-time to earn a masters degree. But I feel that Online Masters Programs are only a few years away and will then be offered world wide. Alredy now there are quite a few universities that do offer Masters programs
Online Masters Programs – The Revolution
Professor Daphne Koller from Stanford University, a co-founder of Coursera, to the University of London gives a presentation about “The Online Revolution: Education at Scale” and particularly the pedagogy/platform that sits behind Coursera
Coursera offers online courses from major top universities, “for free to everyone”. Coursera partners among other with University of California, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania. The online education platform Coursera offers is designed to support millions of students on degree level units. These education units usually last for about five to ten weeks.
Take a few minutes to listen to what she has to say, her speech is a tru eye opener and shows how education will be revolutionized in the very near future.
The revolution is that the online videos that everybody can watch have now been replaced by interactive modules that students have to complete. They get acutal home work and it gets graded, just as it would in normal class attendance.
After the Online Masters Programs finish, usually about 5 to 10 weeks, students who attended regularly and finished the assignments received a certificate of attendance. This certificate in turn could then be turned in at their college or university to receive credits.
Why Online Masters Programs Are So Effective
Thus what’s new is that the acutal Online Masters Programs are now very interactive. Learning this way is much more effective. And unlike in the conventional classroom EVERY student is forced to pay attention, questions are asked about every 4 minutes. No more sleeping off a class. You don’t pay attention, you can’t answer the question, you will not finish the course and can’t get the certificate at the end….
Online Masters Programs are therfore even more effective than their offline equivalents!