Uploaded byMartin Weller
Surviving the Day of the MOOCs
This document summarizes the key points from a course on open education and MOOCs. It discusses the design challenges of MOOCs, including issues around scale, motivation, identity and support for students. It also addresses debates around the role of MOOCs and their implications for higher education. Specifically, it notes concerns that MOOCs could exacerbate the digital divide or that their use may ignore the need for student support. Overall, the document emphasizes that MOOCs are an important development in online learning and open education that higher education institutions should engage with rather than ignore or panic about.
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Surviving the Day of the MOOCs
- 1. Surviving the Dayof the MOOC Martin Weller Image – David Kernohan
- 2. Overview • H817Open experience •4 Design challenges • MOOCs & HE
- 3. MOOC hype Video courtesyof Alan Levine – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNS9nRQElPQ
- 4. H817Open - Anopen course in Open Education • 7 weeks • Informal and formal learners • Running in OpenLearn • Badges • 2 ALS moderating forums • Blog aggregator (h817open.net • Collaboration-lite activity based model • Started March 16th • Also an OER
- 5. Student spaces Course spaces The#H817Open ecosystem
- 6. Mooc Types cMOOCs xMOOCs Distributed Network Peerfocused Platform Linear Academic focused H817Open?
- 7. Some stats • 239syndicated blogs • 911 posts • 556 enrolled • 4,698 new visitors • Weekly visitors 1900-450 • 145,000 page views • 4 registrations on other OU courses • 49 prospectuses requested
- 8. Survey • I wassatisfied with the course: – Agree 27 66% – Agree somewhat 5 12% – Neither agree or disagree 4 10% – Disagree somewhat 3 7% – Disagree 2 5% – Not sure 0 0% • (MOOC average = 74%) • Under 25 0 0% • 25-34 0 0% • 35-44 11 28% • 45-54 17 44% • 55-65 10 26% • 65 or over 1 3%
- 10. Tech Issues • OpenLearnplatform – Speed – Enrol – Screen real estate – Navigation • Cloudworks & badges • Manual blog adding • Blog platforms
- 11. Learner issues • Connectingwith others • Info overload • Being open • Pacing • What is the right metaphor?
- 12. What worked • Mixinginformal and formal learners • Blog aggregator • Weekly email • Allowing flexibility • Activity based approach • Badges • Live sessions
- 13. What I’d dodifferently next year • Platform • Initial community/twitter activity • Advice on reciprocity/engaging • More live sessions • Limit blog options • Update content but largely the same • More multimedia solutions?
- 14. What I’ve learnt •MOOCs are hard work • MOOCs are scary • MOOCs are fun • I believe in open
- 15. You don’t getthis on a conventional course http://ingermariec.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/activity-25-a-poem-on-open-education-2/
- 16. Design challenges Image -http://moocthulhu.com/
- 17. Support • Peer 2peer • Community champions • Paid moderators • Platform based • Encourage self-help • Hashtag it
- 18. Scale • <1000 youcan create community • >1000 shared content becomes overwhelming • How do people find each other? • How do they cope with info overload? http://www.flickr.com/photos/holster/2479746349/
- 19. Motivation • Learners withdiff motivations • Key achievements along the way • Highlight vital activities • Allow catch-up • Encouraging messages • Assessment + recognition http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/4266714722/
- 20. Identity • Is thecommunity the identity? • Is it the academic? • Does it go beyond the MOOC? • Is it explicitly experimental? • How would you craft an opening email? http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewidewideworld/2203253497/
- 21. MOOCs didn’t comefrom nowhere University set up OpenLearn in 2006, representing an ongoing development of the open education movement. Influ the early development of MOOCs, various open learning platforms have been set up by elite institutions; examples 2012 include MIT edX and OU‟s Futurelearn. A key message that emerges is that the evolution of MOOCs is leadi more players in the market as HEI and private organisations seek to take advantage of these innovations in online Figure 1: MOOCs and Open Education Timeline “MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education” Li Yuan (CETIS), Stephen Powell (CETIS) March 2013 http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2013/667
- 22. The battle forOpen • Open is not same as free • Coursera to become elearning provider • MOOCs as solution to ‘broken higher ed’ • Historical narrative excludes higher ed
- 23. The Silicon Valley narrativeEducationis broken! We can sell you MOOCs! MOOCs are the answer!
- 24.
- 25. Does support matter? •Completion rates • Increased digital divide? • Student support (Relative costs over 8 year lifecycle of a DL course)
- 26. What’s interesting aboutMOOCs… How can our curriculum be more flexible? Can we build more automatic support to help students? How can we bridge informal to formal learning? What is my stance on openness? People are interested in elearning Are there smaller achievements we can use for motivation? What technologies can I use?
- 27. MOOCs & HE MOOCsare our friends if we… – can answer these questions – don’t ignore them – don’t panic – make supported learning worthwhile – Understand this is a crucial time http://www.flickr.com/photos/myeye/2181264107/
- 28. Closing thoughts Image –Giulia Forsythe MOOCs are the frontline in the battle for openness The battle for openness is a proxy for the battle for the future of education The worst thing we can do is ignore it
Editor's Notes
- #2 I’ve called this talk “Surviving the Day of the MOOC” because the sudden interest in MOOCs from outside higher education often feels like an alien invasion
- #3 Talk is like an inverted funnel – starts with my personal experience of running a MOOC, then look at some of the broader design issues it raises and finally looking at the bigger issues for higher education
- #4 MOOCs were even on Newsnight last night, and you can’t go a week without reading a “MOOCs are the future” type article, so I often feel like this
- #5 So I ran an open course, part of our Masters. Subject was open ed, so made sense to run as a MOOC.Ran in our openlearn platform, issues 3 badges,
- #6 Mixture of technologyStudents could use own blogging platformEmail turned out to be very important
- #7 MOOCs often divided into cMOOCs and xMOOCs but mine had elements of both