New learning enviroment (I)

Stanford University has not tied itself to a one single MOOC platform. As far as I know,  Stanford is part of coursera and also it is offering courses in two more platforms: Class2go and Venture Lab.  Through venture lab, last fall Stanford offered five courses. Among them was one that called my attention. Professor Paul Kim,  chief technology officer and assistant dean at the Stanford University School of Education, opened a course called: Designing a New Learning Environment. It happened to be that professor Kim came to El Salvador in 2010. He met high rank officials from the new elected government. So I thought to myself it could be a good idea to tell them they could study his course. I wrote to them but never received an answer. However, months later I met them in the opening of a social project. I asked them if they were following the course and they said they weren't.

Paul Kim uses a four-stages diagram to illustrate his ideas about sustainable education environments. At the top of the diagram he places the concept of VALUE. For value he meant local society's views regarding education. Educational projects will fail if local societies do not give any value to the project. This idea has made me wonder if developing societies are willing to embrace new available online educational projects, e.g. MOOC, where three of the four-stages have been built up (Technology, Content and Pedagogy).