Law School Offers ‘Anti-MOOC’ Online Course
UC Berkeley School of Law is offering its first official online ed course for practicing attorneys worldwide. Here’s a shortened version of a story I wrote about the program:
Bill Fernholz stares into a video camera a few feet away as an assistant dabs powder on his face to blunt the harsh light. It wasn’t how he’d imagined himself teaching when he joined the UC Berkeley Law School faculty 14 years ago, but it’s become second nature to him now. Welcome to the world of online education.
Fernholz teaches Fundamentals of U.S. Law, the school’s first official online course. It reflects a carefully planned move to offer select courses online—initially for foreign attorneys with international caseloads.Why the leap online? Approximately 6.7 million higher education students were taking at least one online course in fall 2011, an increase of 570,000 students from the previous year.