Finally, technology is turning its head towards one of the most important and yet archaic aspects of our civilization: education. I have been trying out these MOOC (e.g. Udacity and Coursera), and found them fascinating. I can understand why Sebastian Thrun decided to quit his tenured Stanford faculty job to startup Udacity.
This is going to totally shake the entire education sector. Schools not on the efficient frontier, especially those primarily focusing on teaching rather than research, are in the real danger of extinction.
Pretty soon, students will start to ponder between getting course certificates from Stanford versus getting real degrees from lesser schools.
The technology is no longer the issue. Stanford, if it wants, can already dish out an infinite number CS master degrees annually. The real question is prestige; Stanford is valued precisely because it is a scarce resource. How MOOC and prestige will play out remains an interesting event to watch for.
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