Charlie Rose roundtable discussion on online education and MOOCs

Charlie Rose moderated a worthwhile round-table discussion about online education and MOOCs with Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX; Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania; Joel Klein, former New York City Schools chancellor and CEO of Amplify and Tom Friedman of the New York Times.

The panelists are all MOOC enthusiasts and the discussion is uncritically optimistic. They tout the upside and brush difficulties under the rug, but don't let that put you off.

As the panelists point out, today's MOOCs and Internet technology are still version 1.0. Regardless of today's MOOCs, they, like the Wright Brothers first airplane, are attracting attention, capital and smart people. I think MOOCs (and modular courseware in general) have kicked off a wave of innovation that will transform Internet-based teaching. We are beginning to depart from traditional online teaching that was modeled on the classroom and lecture hall.

(The roundtable video is 38 minutes long. If you would rather just listen to the .mp3 audio while working out at the gym or washing dishes, you can download it here).