Hi, I'm Orman Alney, host of To the Point, produced at the non-profit public radio station, KCRW.

We're going to start this podcast in just a few seconds. First, though, I just want to ask you for a little

support, because in order to be comprehensive, we have to talk to people all over the world. That's

expensive. We have six producers, and they work very hard. That adds to what we need to do in order to try to meet your expectations.

So we've made it easy to help.

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Do that, if you will.

Let's now start the show.

And thanks.

From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

Online learning, past, present, and future.

Hello again, I'm Armin Alney, and this is To the Poet from Public Radio International.

The Daily look at the issues Americans care about most, two years ago at Stanford, a massive open online course, or MOOC, attracted 160,000 students.

MOOCs looked like the future of higher education.

The Internet would make college available to millions.

Now going without it, traditional college professors began to

fear for their jobs. New research shows that MOOCs have not lived up to their promise with very

few students completing their courses, but with millions invested, online learning is not going away.

We'll hear how it's changing. Today's talking point, the latest mystery from North Korea,

why a sudden, high-level execution has taken place.

First, here's the news.

Listen to KCRW's 24-hour all-news channel, stream BBC World Service, NPR and KCRW programs.

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