How many of us are viewing the impact of MOOCs beyond the US and on a worldwide scale?? How many of us are viewing the impact of MOOs beyond or outside the college level??

Open resources are and will continue to have a tremendous impact worldwide and in the US. Australia is the #1 ranked English-speaking country and #2 ranked globally in terms of digital education (behind #1 ranked S. Korea). Australia has been using open sources for 5-10 years. Moodle was created by an Australian who grew up as a distance learner in Western Australian, being a thousand kilometers from a school.

Education in the US and around the world has been unequal. This inequality has partly been due to money and physical barriers (physical access and availability). Open resources eliminates money and physical barriers to digital content/curriculum/instruction/delivery, etc.

Minorities, in particular are often underrepresented in gifted programs or lack access to them. With open resources, they have access to digital content/curriculum/instruction/activities, etc. that may have been denied due to the lack of money and physical access to them.

Open access to information and knowledge not only enables digital inclusion within and among countries, but will address/confront social divides. Learning is a source of self-empowerment.

There are many reasons why children/adults struggle or do not learn in the public schools/college. Instruction, delivery, or presentation may be a reason. Lack of interest, motivation, or attention may be another. As Bostonian mentioned, there may be other mitigating factors that intervene with a person's learning. However, this doesn't mean that these reasons have to be barriers for life.

There are plenty of late bloomers in the US and world who are capable of being successful. Dr. James Goodrich barely graduated high school with a 1.62 GPA before going to a community college and then medical school; today he's one of the top pediatric neurosurgeons/cranial facial specialists in the US and world (http://nymag.com/nymetro/health/features/12470/index1.html).

I'm not saying everyone is cut out to be a top pediatric neurosurgeon, but I'm just saying that there's a lot of people who will benefit from open sources and there's a lot of gifted people out in the world who haven't received an education through public or private schools that might have benefited them and society.