The current options are abysmal, sadly.
Still I'm starting to feel optimistic for the first time in a long time.
There is a horizon on the future, finally thanks to the convergence of more accessible connectivity, devices and capabilites of digital experiences in the next 2 years.
For services and apps to emerge, to make things less abysmal? I don’t see what you are hopeful for, what the given things would change.
Today most places are creating content a 20 year old way. It can't keep up with today's pace or depth of ongoing changes, or how quickly education content is needed on new topics in the future.
Is it that what you mean with „new capabilities of digital experiences“ and „creating content a 20 year old way“? Or do you talk about the formats they are created in?
Life is not linear. Why are traditional education and MOOCs linear and monolothic? Career paths are no longer linear, but so much education continues to be linear.
The pace of innovation adoption in education is very slow, partially due to the lack of technological abilities of leadership and management in education. There is often little vision, and where there might be, there is fear.
MOOCs do not represent all, or the best forms of online learning. They represent the best of what non technical educators came up with.
MOOC structures are clearly late 90's/early 2000's, I know because I worked on a platform to deliver high school education. Little has changed. Education has moved forward very little, the devices, connectivity, and videos have gotten sexier, but it's too often more of the same.
If anything, MOOCs are a concoction of academia working to deliver traditional lectures digitally, but not using the digital medium as well as it could be.
MOOCs have a place in the world still to be effective, it's just not a gold standard or a silver bullet.
70% of learning is informal and outside of the classroom. MOOCs generally do not address this well.
Self-directed learning is going to be a real thing, because it already is. We search constantly for answers on mobile, to construct new abilities.
Academic Institutions are losing a lot of money and it's estimated at least 1/3rd will close in the next 10 years. Many simply cannot keep up with the rate of change in today's world of disruption in a few years. Most existing curriculum is for positions that don't change often.
A completion percentage is a poor metric because it does not measure comprehension and competencies/skills.