What future for Education?

This week is the first week of the MOOC What future for Education, offered by the University of London through Coursera. It´s my first MOOC, so I don´t quite know what to expect - apart from that my enthusiasm may dwindle as the weeks pass. Luckily, though, it´s only a 6 week course, so once past the hump week of week 3, I am hoping I won´t have problems completing.

The structure of the course is divided into five sections, which are the same each week. It starts with a reflection assignment. My plan is to write out more or less all of the reflection assignments on this blog - and so the blog will live as long as I am in this MOOC (or, if all goes well, the next one, too). Some of it is activities in discussion forums and stuff like that. We will have to see if I blog on the other parts or not.

So why am I doing this? I am fascinated by the idea of non- and informal education - and what keeps people motivated to continue with informal education in a LLL perspective. And I thought I would try it out for myself. Going to a museum or what have you is a type informal education (if not also non-formal), but a MOOC suddenly very different. It´s not fun the way visiting a museum is. It´s actually a commitment, where you have to give and take and not just absorb what ever the museum (or teacher) is dishing out. It´s not formal so there is no system I have to be a part of - I do this totally by choice. So in effect it is really harder than formal or casual informal education.

If you don´t know what LLL is, I have added this from Ifed´s webpages. It´s where I found this definition which I thought would be helpful:

Lifelong learning was to be the ‘master concept’ that should shape educational systems (UNESCO 1972:182). What emerged was an influential tripartite categorization of learning systems. It’s best known statement comes from the work of Combs with Procure and Ahmed (1973):

Formal education: the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded ‘education system’, running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialised programmes and institutions for full-time technical and professional training.

Informal education: the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment – from family and neighbours, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media.

Non-formal education: any organised educational activity outside the established formal system – whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity – that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objectives.

Also, truth be told, I added that link so that I will be able to find it again for myself in the future. The definitions of formal, non-formal and informal education confuse me at times, and they are mostly administrative, so it is good to have them here. Personally, I sometimes feel like non-formal education is a bit of an oxymoron. I have my formal education and I have my books, conferences, etc which are informal education. So I really wonder what this non-formal education initiative - this MOOC - will be like.

I haven´t quite decided if I want to do this for a certificate or not, but I understand that I can sign up for that later if I decide to do so. We will have to see. For now I am going to get started on the first reflection assignment.