While great teachers can deliver lectures to tens of thousands of students worldwide via video, there’s no way for them to have a conversation with all those students. And while platforms like Coursera have made it easier for professors to put together online classes, the end result is a hypertextbook, not a virtual classroom that builds discipline. No wonder MOOCs have an average completion rate of just 7 percent. By and large the material is no more compelling than a textbook, and certificates of completion aside, there’s no reward for finishing the class. The virtual classroom has to compete for attention with Facebook, Netflix, and the real world. Interaction between teachers and students in MOOCs is so minimal that two professors from Duke teaching a class on reason and argument using Coursera promised to shave their heads on camera for a pass rate above 25 percent, providing a practical example of an appeal to pity. The cheap tricks of edutainment substitute for the hard work of learning.