Oh, the irony: Coursera suspends online course about how to run an online course A Coursera instructor offering an online course on how to manage an online course has apparently given her students – all 40,000 of them – an unintentional lesson on how not to do just that. Just a week after its launch, a course on the “Fundamentals of Online Learning” was suspended after complaints by students about technical glitches, confusing instructions and problems with the group-oriented design of the class. Led by Fatimah Wirth, an instructional designer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the class was intended to cover online pedagogy, course design, assessment, web tools and other relevant topics. On her blog, Online Learning Insights, educator and instructional designer Debbie Morrison called it “the disaster at Coursera.” Others on Twitter were similarly critical: Egads, this group thing in #foemooc is a giant clusterf*#k.Not the best way to start a course with this much information (says the ISD)— Michelle Franz (@lrndeveloper) January 29, 2013
A break with tradition What are the value of MOOCs? Are they an opportunity or a threat, asks Carolyn Lewis Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been around for a while, educating many people for a lot less money than more traditional methods. They provide great opportunities for life-long learning, particularly for those who face barriers to education. They generally do not lead to a formal qualification, although some institutions do offer credit by exam. But with many courses offering only automated or peer grading, the real objective is to get people to learn, something that must be applauded. Enrolment is completely open so it’s quick and easy to get started. Support comes mainly from a student’s peers, with tutors and or mentors online to answer questions. Are MOOCs successful? How can FE and HE institutions afford to design and develop MOOCs and then share them free?” What is their future in the UK? We must not lose sight of the benefits and value of what we already do well.
A Course Design ‘Sprint’: My Experience in an Education Hackathon This past Saturday, February 23, I participated in my first hackathon event; not a coding event as typical of computer programmers, but an education hackathon—a “Course Sprint” where a group of fourteen individuals [educators, open science advocates, community members and students] collaborated to design and build an open, online course, An Introduction to Open Science and Data for the School of Open on P2PU. Creative Commons hosted the event at their office in Mountain View, California and invited both face-to-face and remote participants, of which I was one of four remote. The event was held in support of Open Data Day to raise awareness and involve communities worldwide in exploring how to liberate, promote and publish open data. In this post I’ll review the Course Sprint experience—how it worked, what worked and didn’t, the results, which ended up being not a complete course, but a solid framework for the course which is ready to be incorporated into the platform on P2PU. Like this:
MOOC Student Demographics | the augmented trader I report on survey responses from 1,207 of the 25,589 students who enrolled in a Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) titled “Computational Investing, Part I” via coursera.org in Spring 2013. The responses represent 56% of the students who completed the course and 2.5% of those who initially enrolled but did not complete it. Related articles Executive summary Here are a few of the most relevant and interesting bits of data: Enrollment and completion: 25,589 enrolled (clicked “sign me up”).15,688 (61%) watched a video6,855 (27%) took a quiz.1,165 completed the course, which is: 4.5% of those who enrolled.7.4% of those who watched a video.17% of those who took a quiz. Of those who completed the course: 36% live in the US.53% are white.89% are male.9% hold Ph.D.s. And now, for a more detailed examination. Background This data concerns students who enrolled in the second offering of Computational Investing, Part I in Spring 2013. Demographics: Country of Residence Demographics: Age Demographics: Sex
What is a MOOC? What are the different types of MOOC? xMOOCs and cMOOCs | Reflections The acronym “MOOC” has been in vogue recently, with lots of discussion about organisations like udacity, coursera and edX. The acronym stands for “Massive Open Online Course.” These organisations provide one interpretation of the MOOC model. They focus on concise, targeted video content – with short videos rather than full-length lectures to wade through – and use automated testing to check students’ understanding as they work through the content. These MOOCS have been dubbed “xMOOCs”. I’ve taken and completed a couple of xMOOCS so far. I’ve found the video lectures to be an improvement on the traditional lecture format. But, of course, the one-on-one interaction and easy back-and-forth questioning that can happen at the end of a formal lecture cannot take place in an xMOOC. Coursera recently implemented a system for crowd-sourcing peer assessment. So what is the other type of MOOC, and how is it different? The other type of MOOC is based on connectivism. Like this: Like Loading...
A MOOC Contest, the Week of Open, and California’s Bold Move In this ‘Need-to-Know’ blog post series my goal is to share noteworthy stories with readers that speak of need-to-know developments within higher education and K-12 that have the potential to influence, challenge and/or transform the traditional model of education. There are three hot topics creating much buzz this week in education around the world including 1) a MOOC contest with a stipend of €25,000 that is open to scholars from around the world that seeks to find the ten most creative and innovative MOOCs, 2) Open Education Week with new courses for learners and webinars for scholars offered around the clock, and 3) California’s bold announcement that’s rocking higher education institutions in California, and perhaps other public higher education institutions across the United States. 1) Calling all Instructors and Professors: A MOOC Contest There is a contest for building a better MOOC—or at least building one that is sustainable and innovative. Further Reading: Like this:
About MOOC Completion Rates: The Importance of Student Investment | the augmented trader I just finished teaching a Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) titled “Computational Investing, Part I” via coursera.org. 53,000 people “enrolled,” which is to say they clicked a “sign up” button. How many finished? related post regarding lessons learned Completion rates are low, but that statistic is misleading Much of the criticism of MOOCs centers on supposedly low completion rates. And these rates do seem low when compared to completion rates of regular university courses. One of the 53,000 students in my class watches a lecture video. What does it cost a student to enroll in a course? The economics are significantly different for a student at a traditional university than for a student starting a MOOC. At a regular university all of the students starting a course have paid tuition, they have moved to an apartment or dorm near the university, and they’ve set aside time to complete the course. What’s the cost of failure or withdrawal? What are the implications for completion rates? Like this:
The 6 Biggest Challenges Of Using Education Technology In an unplanned series of sorts, we’re showcasing a couple of posts about the 2013 NMC/EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Horizon Report for Higher Education . We’ve already talked about the key trends in the report , but it also addressed another important topic when it comes to classroom technology – the challenges involved with implementing new technologies. The Horizon Report identified six broad challenges to implementation which span the widest range of users – while recognizing that there are many significant local barriers that present their own challenges as well. They’ve taken some of the obvious issues such as financial limitations and physical limitations (getting wifi through the thick bunker-like walls of some 1940′s buildings, for example) and looked more specifically at the nature of higher education and how that presents challenges to implementing new technology. Teachers needs to be learning how to use the technology themselves, too. Do you teach at the higher ed level?
The Reason THIS EDUdotcom May Not Be As Different From Last Time As You Think If there was ever any doubt that we are in the midst of a new dot.com boom for education, that doubt was removed at last week’s SXSWEDU. The event brought entrepreneurs and educators to Austin, Texas for four days of panels and a competition for education start-ups. I had the great fun of participating in a panel discussion on “Are Courses a Commodity?” with Myk Garn, Mickey Revenaugh and Michael Horn. Vanessa Dennen and I helped Curt Bonk rehearse his “cage match” answers while sharing beers and ribs at one of the Cengage social events. Ellen Wagner, Executive Director of WCET Gotta say, not all of it felt all that good. While I was there, I kept hearing that THIS dot.com is different because it’s about education, and because the tech is better and data will inform us and investors are smarter and the market is ready and there are business plans and people aren’t just throwing exuberant ideas at the wall and hoping that something sticks. Really? Ready? People. Like this: Like Loading...
Teaching a MOOC: Lessons Learned & Best Balch Practices | the augmented trader I just completed teaching a MOOC on Computational Investing via coursera.org. I did some things right and a lot of things wrong. Here are my lessons learned from the first round. I’m very excited now about the second go at this, and the ability to make the course even better. Some of these items are coursera specific, but many apply more broadly. Some people will be upset: Be prepared I’m not talking about the students. Your course will be closely scrutinized. One critique MOOCs are susceptible to is an accusation of “dumbing down” or “oversimplification.” Many of these attacks arise from a belief that MOOCs are promoted as “identical” to college course content; Or that the course is “just as rigorous” as graduate course CS XXXX at Georgia Tech. That being said, I do believe that we can produce and deliver “rigorous” content via MOOCs, and many are working on that. Set expectations for the students You also want to avoid having folks in the course who are “over qualified.” More to come