We teach faculty how to teach online. So we see a lot of online courses.
They are not high quality. At least, not high quality for Gen Y and succeeding generations.
For a start, only about 11% of online courses have multimedia (audio, animation, slide shows) and interactivity (simulations; online gaming, drag-and-drop).
Recently James Surowiecki, New Yorker financial columnist, noted that the same situation existed 100 years ago with the movies. He writes:
"In 1918, the movie business found itself in crisis. Moviegoers...had been growing bored with the crude, melodramatic shorts of the day. Photoplay commented, 'The producer...is not producing good enough pictures. Unless he does so, and does so promptly, the movie business cannot hope long to endure.' "