The latest flavour in the e-Learning world is the fabled MOOC (Massive Online Open Courses). In short, courses are uploaded to the ‘cloud’ and then made available to everyone interested in the content. Some companies offer access to MOOCs for free whilst others charge a fee before one can enrol.

Yet by bringing home disappointingly low completion rates (The Open University reports this to be as low as 7%), this new economy of learning, boxed and packaged by governments and mighty global media companies as ‘higher education for the masses’ isn’t quite dancing to the tune that is being played.

The problem is that each of the companies grabbing the headlines (there’s Udemy, Khan Academy and Coursera) are all struggling to provide that all important incentive for learners to complete the course(s) upon which they are enrolled. Some understand this is as a result of the separation of teaching from accreditation, whilst many boil it down to something to which MOOCs cannot provide, something which is at the heart of traditional education: communal and reflexive teaching.

In the UK the latter perspective is being championed by new EdTech startup Chalksy. Launched earlier this year, the company operates as a cause for hopefulness - their focus not on the number of MOOC subscribers they achieve but on bringing the kind of collective and reflexive teaching and learning that characterises quality education.

“We view things a little differently to the big companies offering MOOCs. We realise that there is little incentive for learners to complete their courses online, they enroll and then they lose touch. There needs to be something more fundamental that can keep learners engaged” says Phil Cook, head of strategic operations at Chalksy.

The way that Chalksy offers an alternative is through their concentration upon live one-to-one video sessions between student and teacher, a bid to recreate the most fundamental of conditions that exist within the classroom and therefore increase the levels of interaction and engagement experienced by the online learner.

“We wanted to make sure that one of the main reasons why people enjoy learning so much - i.e. communal communication with a teacher - is the nucleus of Chalksy. This isn’t about selling millions of MOOCs that 90% of subscribers won’t ever complete, for us it is about remaining true to what is at the heart of education, and that is to create the conditions allow for continuing dialogue” says Cook.

Cook is enthusiastic about the future of Chalksy and what it is doing for the wider educational technology sector, with a growing number of MOOC based startups entering the sector.

“It’s great to see so much interest in e-Learning, we’re moving towards more refined synergies between education and technology. Our focus is on making sure that all the lessons and courses started through Chalksy go on to be completed, that is what is going to make real change.”