To MOOC or Not To MOOC?

Oct 31, 2013

To MOOC or not to MOOC?  That has been the question in the minds of many educational institutions’ leadership since early to mid-2012.  Should we produce our classes on video and share them with a variety of partners to learn from these experiences?

MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) were born before Stanford 2012’s spin out of two VC-funded entities.  Launched by independent faculty alongside existing classes in 2008, MOOCs tested cloud-based open technologies and connectivist learning ideas.  MOOCs are not new in their engagement in media-supported education, ranging from rich histories of educational films through public broadcasting and through various interactive video and gaming products.  Yet MOOCs continue to cause enthusiasm and anxiety, painted with the brushes of innovation and of destruction of educational organizations.

How do we have concrete and beneficial discussions about these broadly labeled experiences?  Much of the focus has been on some of the science and technology-oriented courses offered by three of the large funded platform companies and a cadre of more than 70 universities.  Yet MOOC experiences have ranged from DS106, a creative digital storytelling collaboration, through new MOOCs on mobile health and philanthropy, acting with their action research content working with diverse local communities.

Presently, many vocal experts are painting with a single brush a class that is “online” and are affecting the discussions and emotions behind the questions.  Questions arise beyond the economics of learning at scale – questions can focus on the learning science, design, and differences in qualities, as well as the real learning outcomes.  Questions also let us use MOOCs to review what actually has been “working” in the 700-person lecture hall and in more intimate distributed learning platforms.

Questions at Hand:

How can we discuss MOOCs to understand (a) what is working, (b) what isn’t working, (c) biases and beliefs around MOOCs, and (d) how to learn from the experiences so far how we can work with MOOC concepts and structures within our own educational environments?

  • What is the spectrum of what is being offered and self-labeled as a MOOC?
  • Should we have a broader rubric of both measurement and creation?  Not all MOOCs are alike or even have the same learning qualities in their design and execution.  By creating a stronger rubric to analyze and discuss MOOCs – beyond cMOOCs and xMOOCs as burgeoning labels – we can help participants make decisions and designers look beyond their own cohorts of creators to seeing what really works in terms of design, communications/marketing, and integration into broader life-based learning programs.

Tidbits and Updates

Screen x Screen Online Tools – Tidbits and Notes

Screen x Screen Online Tools – Tidbits and Notes

Thanks for joining today's session at the ScreenxScreen Virtual Conference on Online Tools.  Online Tools are important and potentially both beneficial and distracting for artists and those who create engagement and content with them.    Background Links and...

read more
MONDO.NYC

MONDO.NYC

Upcoming Events MONDO.NYC October 13-16, 2020 - ONLINECelebrating its fifth Anniversary, #MondoNYC is a four-day global interactive meeting and livestream conference and showcase festival, a vital pipeline of information, connectivity, and curation of great new music,...

read more
Creating Fearlessly in Virtual Reality

Creating Fearlessly in Virtual Reality

Please enjoy the "Innovating Music" podcast that our Executive Director produced in association with her role at the UCLA Center for Music Innovation at the Herb Alpert School of Music. This Episode: How do you create new and...

read more
Change Stories: Change How We Work and Decide

Change Stories: Change How We Work and Decide

We enjoyed sharing thoughts with the US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) OCIO Learning Series.  This session was recorded in January and ran as a webinar on March 17.  You can find it now at http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/multimedia/videos and can...

read more
Reflecting on My SXSW Journeys

Reflecting on My SXSW Journeys

I spoke at SXSW Music again this year on my current favorite topic: Music 20/20 and how we can proactively affect the future. SXSW, however, is not just about speaking. It is about diving deeply into diverse ideas with diverse people. It is one of my annual...

read more
Listening Harder to Me from My Past

Listening Harder to Me from My Past

About this time each year, I look at my stuff. Goodwill Industries gets a lot of my physical stuff, and gets a lot more this year as two of my three kids are ensconced in colleges not in this same town. My third got the last of her college applications out yesterday...

read more