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LEARNING ABOUT MOOCS

PRESENTATION BYNTHABISENG MATLALA

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WHAT IS MOOCS?The term MOOC was coined by Dave Cormier or Bryan Alexander (Alexander, 2008; Cormier, 2008; Daniel, 2012; Masters & Qaboos, 2011; G. Siemens, 2012a) to describe a course on Connectivism (CCK08) organized by George Siemens and Stephen Downers in 2008, which attracted 2,200 participants (Downes, 2010.A MOOC integrates the connectivity of social networking, the facilitation of an acknowledged expert in a field of study, and a collection of freely accessible online resources. Perhaps most importantly, however, a MOOC builds on the active engagement of several hundred to several thousand “students” who self-organize their participation according to learning goals, prior knowledge and skills, and common interests. Although it may share in some of the conventions of an ordinary course, such as a predefined timeline and weekly topics for consideration, a MOOC generally carries no fees, no prerequisites other than Internet access and interest, no predefined expectations for participation, and no formal accreditation.

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MOOC ACRONYM STAND FOR• MassiveStudent numbers can be 100,000 +• OpenStudy any course, anywhere at any time• OnlineAs opposed to face-to-face or blended• CourseLearning units in an academic subject

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HISTORY BEHIND MOOCS• 2004: George Siemens & Stephen Downes develop theory of Connectivism, “the thesis that

knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks (Downes, 2012, p.9).

• 2008: First MOOC presented at University of Manitoba with ~ 2200 learners• 2010: Dave Cormier videos about MOOCs added to YouTube (Cormier, 2010) • 2011: MOOC for college prep skills helps freshmen prepare for college requirements

(Cormier, 2011) • 2012: • Harvard’s first MOOC has 370,000 registered students (Pappano, 2012)• 2012: Coursera launches from Stanford; offers first xMOOCs (Chen, 2012)• New York Times calls 2012 “The Year of the MOOC” Pappano, 2012) • 2013: cMOOCs and xMOOCs too numerous to count accurately

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HISTORY BEHIND MOOCS• The evolution of technology and of new learning experiences have always been closely

related. As distance learning specialists affirm, the field of distance-learning had three main generations:

• Correspondence study• Multimedia• Computer-mediated• The first of these distance learning models grew exponentially in Europe and United

States after the Industrial Revolution, especially because a more qualified work force was needed for the factories. In addition, postal services were becoming faster, cheaper and more reliable. For example, in the 19th century, students from Australia were already able take correspondence courses from prestigious universities, such as the London School of Economics, one of the first in the United Kingdom to offer distance education

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TYPES OF MOOCS

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CONTINUES• The first MOOC ever offered was a cMOOC.• Based on a Connectivist Learning Theory• Knowledge / content is generated by teachers, students and multiple

others.• Multiple technologies – 12 in this first MOOC – are used to connect

people participating in the course.• On the fringes but cutting edge in terms of pedagogy and technologie

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sMOOCS• Coursera MOOCs could be characterized as a Standard MOOCs or an

sMOOC.

• Founded in the fall of 2011 by Daphne Koller (Stanford) and Andrew Ng (Stanford) and was launched in April 2012 after significant venture capital funding was secured (MarketWire, 2012).

• As of 4th April 2013 Coursera has 62 university partners and had registered over 3.5 million users enrolled in over 300 courses in 20 categories (Coursera, 2013a; Protalinksi, 2013a).

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xMOOCSedX could be characterized as an xMOOC.

• the X signifying excellence, external outreach, exploration, experimentation and expansion (Rodrick & Sun, 2012) – holds for edX which has grown out of a tradition of exploring online teaching and learning (Daniel, 2012).

• MIT announced MITx at the end of 2011 for a launch in spring 2012. MITx has now morphed into edX with the addition of Harvard and UC Berkeley (EdX, 2012). edX is not for profit (EdX, 2012) and has been financed to the tune of US$ 60 million through participating institutions and through “gifts” from Harvard and MIT alumni (EdX, 2012).

• As of November 2012 edX had 370,000 students (Coursera had 1.7 million at the same point in time) (Pappano, 2012).

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xMOOCSedX

• Overall, edX conceives of their MOOCs as providing the potential for educational research that will improve both the on campus and off campus experience (“Classroom in the Cloud,” 2012; de Luzuriaga, 2012; Lin, 2012).

• Underlying pedagogies / technologies may not be that different at the moment but there seems to be an ongoing commitment to quality content creation / exploring technologies for effective teaching.

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HOW IT WORKS

• You don’t necessary complete assignments, but engage and share with other participants; making connections with each other’s ideas and research using digital software and social networking, such as Blackboard Collaborate and Twitter

• The course and resources are accessible and free, although any certification required may need to be paid for.

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MORE INFORMATION ON HOW IT WORKS

• Video lectures, mastery learning, and peer assessment. • Retrieval and testing for learning. Interaction = the video

frequently stops, and students are asked to answer a simple question to test whether they are tracking the material.

• Coursera provides university partners with a flipped classroom. MOOC handles the lecture, course reading, some assessment & peer-to-peer interaction for campus-based tuition paying students. On-campus activities focused more on active learning & instructor help.

• Non-tuition paying open participants have no active learning component. Students are tossed a tidbit of social learning in the form of discussion forums. Participants from two or three high school groups throughout the U.S. and Canada

• Students working collaboratively both in classroom and online

• Students will be guided and receive coaching if needed to become technologically capable.

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CONTINUES………

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WILL MOOCS WORKS

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REFERENCES Doherty,L.2013,Everything You Need to Know About MOOCs (Well Almost),http://www.slideshare.net/iaindoherty/everything-you-need-to-know-about-moocs-well-almost?related=1.(30 JULY2015)Richmond,E.2011.MOOC.http://www.slideshare.net/LizRecycles/mooc-presentation?qid=485f0841-e86b-4a70-b9dc-23b30a728b56&v=default&b=&from_search=1.(30 JULY2015)http://moocnewsandreviews.com/a-short-history-of-moocs-and-distance-learning/.(30 JULY2015)http://www.slideshare.net/LynGoodnight/multmedia-presentation-goodnight.(30 JULY2015)