Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I think it's useful to include opportunity cost when calculating the cost of an eductaion. A case in point: the free MOOC. Robert Talbert reports, "this week has me reconsidering the notion that MOOCs are "free". They may not cost anything, but there is an expense, namely time. That '3–5 hour workload' estimate turned out to be wildly underestimated, at least for newbies like me." It makes me think of my own university experience - while other people used weekends to socialize, work on projects and network, I was pulling my two weekend night-shifts at 7-Eleven. Sure, I did fine - but it was only after I quit my night job that I scored a perfect 4.0 GPA. Makes me wonder what I could have done had my background been silver spoon rather than Splurpee straw.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 05:29 a.m.

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