The ability of massive open online courses to deliver exactly the same experience simultaneously to thousands and thousands of students breaks the mold of traditional university education. We can all see their potential to increase access to education and reduce the costs of education.
----Robert Groves (Georgetown University ) |
THE APPEARNCE OF MOOCs
1. What is MOOcs?
A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent development in distance education. (Wikipedia)
A MOOC is an online course with the option of free and open registration, a publicly-shared curriculum, and open-ended outcomes. MOOCs integrate social networking, accessible online resources, and are facilitated by leading practitioners in the field of study. Most significantly, MOOCs build on the engagement of learners who self-organize their participation according to learning goals, prior knowledge and skills, and common interests. (The MOOC model for digital practice)
Course
It should have some learning objectives to be achieved by students after certain activities within in a given period of time (therefore, it should have a beginning and an end). In addition, it should have some quizzes and exams to assess the knowledge acquired by students. And there should be some kind of interaction between students and teachers in every possible way (student-student and student-teacher).
Open
Open has several meanings in MOOCs. On one hand, the course should be open to everyone and should not require some prerequisites such as possession of a qualification or a level of performance in earlier studies. On the other hand, the access to educational resources (videos, lecture notes) should be free (but other things, like being able to ask direct questions to the teacher, the correction of the activities, or obtaining a certificate at the end of the course may have an economic cost). .Open. is also often interpreted as it does not make use of a closed learning platform, but educational resources are hosted in different places like websites, blogs, wikis, or multimedia repositories. Finally, "open" is also often interpreted as the course makes extensive use of open content, and in turn, content generated by the course is also published open so it can be reused by others. This latter interpretation of "open" is the least fulfilled nowadays, as the most successful MOOCs are organized by companies, such as Coursera or Udacity, who have little interest in sharing their courses open.
Online
The course is done remotely via the Internet and does not require physical attendance at a classroom. This feature is essential for anyone from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection can participate in these courses.
Massive
It should allow access to a very large number of students, much larger than a face-to-face class, or a traditional online course. In addition, the course should be prepared to accept changes in the number of students in several orders of magnitude, for example, going from 1,000 to 100,000 students, without a major problem for operation.
A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent development in distance education. (Wikipedia)
A MOOC is an online course with the option of free and open registration, a publicly-shared curriculum, and open-ended outcomes. MOOCs integrate social networking, accessible online resources, and are facilitated by leading practitioners in the field of study. Most significantly, MOOCs build on the engagement of learners who self-organize their participation according to learning goals, prior knowledge and skills, and common interests. (The MOOC model for digital practice)
Course
It should have some learning objectives to be achieved by students after certain activities within in a given period of time (therefore, it should have a beginning and an end). In addition, it should have some quizzes and exams to assess the knowledge acquired by students. And there should be some kind of interaction between students and teachers in every possible way (student-student and student-teacher).
Open
Open has several meanings in MOOCs. On one hand, the course should be open to everyone and should not require some prerequisites such as possession of a qualification or a level of performance in earlier studies. On the other hand, the access to educational resources (videos, lecture notes) should be free (but other things, like being able to ask direct questions to the teacher, the correction of the activities, or obtaining a certificate at the end of the course may have an economic cost). .Open. is also often interpreted as it does not make use of a closed learning platform, but educational resources are hosted in different places like websites, blogs, wikis, or multimedia repositories. Finally, "open" is also often interpreted as the course makes extensive use of open content, and in turn, content generated by the course is also published open so it can be reused by others. This latter interpretation of "open" is the least fulfilled nowadays, as the most successful MOOCs are organized by companies, such as Coursera or Udacity, who have little interest in sharing their courses open.
Online
The course is done remotely via the Internet and does not require physical attendance at a classroom. This feature is essential for anyone from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection can participate in these courses.
Massive
It should allow access to a very large number of students, much larger than a face-to-face class, or a traditional online course. In addition, the course should be prepared to accept changes in the number of students in several orders of magnitude, for example, going from 1,000 to 100,000 students, without a major problem for operation.
2. Classifications of MOOCs
An xMOOC relies on a more traditional model of education, based on lectures recorded in videos, and usually is well-financed. An advantage of xMOOCs is that they significantly broaden the number of students who can be exposed to university-level courses. Critics of xMOOCs, however, argue that xMOOCs are inferior to the university courses they mimic because they eliminate teacher-student interactions and involve limited student-student interactions. Platforms like edX, Coursera, and Udacity provide xMOOCs.
cMOOC |
A cMOOC emphasizes the connectivist philosophy: it is a social platform for collaboratively sharing and building knowledge within a community of people. Rather than being delivered by an individual instructor, as in traditional university courses, cMOOCs involve groups of people learning together. cMOOCs often include blogs, learning communities, and social media platforms that contain content and promote interaction. In this environment, participants are all considered teachers and learners, which stands in contrast to the structure of xMOOCs, where each individual is either a student or a teacher.
CONTROVERSERY ABOUT MOOCs
1. Seven reasons to take MOOCs
2. Three reasons for not taking Moocs
1) There are no incentives to keep you from dropping out.
Unlike traditional university, where dropping out of a class would results in you having to re-enrol in your programme, there is no negative incentive if you drop out of a MOOC. There are no cost involved in dropping out as you did not invest any money it (you can even get a voucher on some platforms if you did) and the only thing lost is the time you had already invested. It will not affect your degree in any way because there is no fixed curriculum and no one will blame you for not finishing. This lack of incentives makes it very easy for people to stop participating or un-enrol from the course.
2) Not everyone feels the need to complete the course.
As MOOCs cater to a varied public which is much more diverse than traditional education, it is likely the things MOOC participants expect from this type of education is different than traditional students. Some of the students that are enrolled might pursue to complete the course but others might just be interested in a specific element or topic of the course. Time commitments differ more than traditional education as MOOC students might do this next to their regular job or educational programme as something that is a great supplement to their main activity but does not require completion to benefit them.
3) Concepts such as ‘enrolment’ have different meanings from traditional education.
In traditional education, enrolling in a course often includes some consideration of the added value of the course to your overall programme. In the world of MOOCs, this is not necessarily the case. As Robert Wright, a Pinceton lecturer, pointed out ‘enrolment’ in a MOOC could mean as little as “Sure, what the hell, send me an email when this course starts.” making it have a fundamental different meaning than enrolling in more traditional education. As a result of this the metrics we use to measure the success of a MOOC should differ from those used in traditional education (at least for now).
1) There are no incentives to keep you from dropping out.
Unlike traditional university, where dropping out of a class would results in you having to re-enrol in your programme, there is no negative incentive if you drop out of a MOOC. There are no cost involved in dropping out as you did not invest any money it (you can even get a voucher on some platforms if you did) and the only thing lost is the time you had already invested. It will not affect your degree in any way because there is no fixed curriculum and no one will blame you for not finishing. This lack of incentives makes it very easy for people to stop participating or un-enrol from the course.
2) Not everyone feels the need to complete the course.
As MOOCs cater to a varied public which is much more diverse than traditional education, it is likely the things MOOC participants expect from this type of education is different than traditional students. Some of the students that are enrolled might pursue to complete the course but others might just be interested in a specific element or topic of the course. Time commitments differ more than traditional education as MOOC students might do this next to their regular job or educational programme as something that is a great supplement to their main activity but does not require completion to benefit them.
3) Concepts such as ‘enrolment’ have different meanings from traditional education.
In traditional education, enrolling in a course often includes some consideration of the added value of the course to your overall programme. In the world of MOOCs, this is not necessarily the case. As Robert Wright, a Pinceton lecturer, pointed out ‘enrolment’ in a MOOC could mean as little as “Sure, what the hell, send me an email when this course starts.” making it have a fundamental different meaning than enrolling in more traditional education. As a result of this the metrics we use to measure the success of a MOOC should differ from those used in traditional education (at least for now).
MOOCs IN CHINESE UNIVERSITIES
Nowadays, there are many Chinese universities which provide MOOCs for students to choose. In the website www.icourse163.org, there are 54 universities which upload their couses,and most of them are top university in China. Some English couses are offered and students can get credit from learning courses in MOOCs. This year, there are 6 optional course provided in my university (Guangxi Medical University) and students are free to study in traditional classroom or online.
Something we need to concern about the MOOCs in university
1) The courses in the MOOCs are optional choices for students. The traditional classroom is the main path for students to get knowledge or skills.
2) Students' expenditure on computer and internet accessing should be considered when we ask them for taking MOOCs.
3) Students' orperation skills need to be improve before they taking online coures for most of the students who come from remote areas in China have never use computer before.
1) The courses in the MOOCs are optional choices for students. The traditional classroom is the main path for students to get knowledge or skills.
2) Students' expenditure on computer and internet accessing should be considered when we ask them for taking MOOCs.
3) Students' orperation skills need to be improve before they taking online coures for most of the students who come from remote areas in China have never use computer before.