New ACM White Paper Looks at Challenges and Opportunities of Online Learning, MOOCs

January 15, 2013

 

The ACM Education Board and Council have just published a white paper addressing the growing popularity of online education, specifically Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). "Online Learning in Computing" grew out of a panel on online learning hosted by the ACM Education Council in June 2012, with several respected educators and researchers sharing their experiences with and opinions on teaching and learning online: Woodie Flowers of MIT, Peter Norvig of Google, John Mitchell of Stanford University, Dave Patterson of Berkeley (former president of ACM), and Candice Thille of Carnegie Mellon University. This white paper was put together in consultation and with the participation of members of the Education Council and its various representatives, including the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA).

Rather than taking a stance on the merits of online education, the paper seeks to outline the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies and current educational experiments, and provide a platform to encourage discussion and debate. Potential opportunities for online education as they relate to Education Council priorities are discussed, particularly in the context of the CS2013 curriculum guidelines and the K-12 and Indian education initiatives.