More on MOOCs

 http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb

Emerson's The American Scholar

An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837 

http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm

 "In life, too often, the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and consider him in reference to the main influences he receives."

Disruptive Technologies

Then, there's this: will it change the world?

To get things started, we found this article via Metafilter a few weeks ago. It's from 1939 and addresses the usefulness of "useless" knowledge: http://library.ias.edu/files/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf

And a recent followup/literature review of the above: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/27/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge/