MOOC in this students-weigh-in-on-value-of-massive-open-online-classes. The crisis in higher education tells a great story.

Debating the flipped classroom at Stanford elaborates on how flipping the classroom has changed the way online education is done. We all may have experienced these flipped classroom in certain ways.

Here is a professor’s real time interaction with the students in the classroom.

Why some of the best universities are giving away their courses?

“Each has answers. But basically it comes down to these: To serve the greater good. To win a public-relations race. And, most especially, to enhance reputations.”

“We’ve had MOOCs and open learning resources for centuries,” says Dave Cillay, executive director of WSU Online. “They’re called libraries.”

Interesting to relate MOOCs to libraries, and in reflection, libraries could be one such study platform where individual learners would pursue their own studies through interaction with the artifacts, books and various media. The concept of libraries has been changed dramatically when each of the learners could build their own libraries, in the form of PLE/PLN, with a pull basis, such as RSS, delicious and Diigo, Scoopit and Paper.li etc. Other forms of libraries include the public aggregation and curation sites which are now ubiquitous, and are easily accessed.

How would Connectivism play a part in this networked learning? When I reflected on the comments I once made with Matthias Melcher’s post on Connectivism:

Hi Matthias,
I have been thinking about those concepts on network, patterns, and similarity also in the past years, and these have been casually mentioned in my blog posts. How would we be able to apply complexity to “rule based” education and learning? Would that be similar to putting a round peg (learner centred approach/learner based teaching/learning) into a square hole (rule based teaching – lecture, broadcasting)? I agree on the wider application of Connectivism. How would such informal connections “conform” to the rule based “corporate world”? I could see more opportunities, but equally interesting challenges, if informal connections are to “confront” the formal institutional settings. It is not just evolution, it is revolution, and it is happening, it is ubiquitous, and it is in constant flux. What do you think?
John

I think the revolution that is going on in the education world is now coming alive, first in this xMOOC, with the following features:

Traditional institutional education x MOOC

limited size massive

closed, fee for education open to public, free for education

credit granted no credit granted

face-to-face/online online

rule based teaching skills based teaching

content knowledge declarative and procedural knowledge

didactic – question – answer mastery learning – learner – paced

mass or video lecture short video based lectures

face-to-face discussion, LMS – forum LMS – forum, social media & technology, internet

broadcasting within institution broadcasting with flipping the classroom

Assessment – assignment Assessment – machine graded assignments

projects, quizzes, tests, projects, quizzes, tests,

examinations examinations

institutional based education model entrepreneurial based education business

Posted in Connectivism, Education, MOOC, technology
Tagged Education, MOOC, technology
22 Comments

September 28, 2012

#Oped12 What sort of education is needed in Higher Education?

In this We don’t need no education:

The only reason why the Chinese system can be so rigorous and demanding is because the Chinese place a high value on education. Being a teacher is seen as a high-status occupation, not a fallback career.

Placing high value on education surely would provide a nation with competitive advantage.

What sort of education system would be needed in nations to maintain such a competitive edge under a global economy?

Part of solutions lies with the provision of open education system and resources, whereas another part of the solutions includes the adoption of innovative and creative approaches in teaching and learning.

Treat primary teachers like doctors sounds a good idea. Would that work in developed countries?

There are significant challenges in education, including the funding problem. We seem to be experiencing the Higher Education Bubble, where education is simply too expensive as a commodity for some people who couldn’t afford it.

Online education sounds promising, in that it could reduce the cost of design and delivery significantly, as teaching and learning no longer is bounded by the brick and mortar – the traditional classrooms.

However, there are also trouble with online education, where the learners may feel isolated in their journey, due to various factors such as lack of skills, confidence or support.

Learning must start from the learners, as teachers are gradually perceived as guides on the sides, at this digital age. Doctors are always in demand as the citizens are aging and having health problems. Would that be the case for educators? I think the problem of education go further than the educators’ status, qualifications etc. It has to go back to the system, as what we could learn from the quality education and movement.

Education is valued differently at different times, and that we are now at a transition from industrial type of mass education to a personalized and democratized sort of education.

Changing the clothing (education) for a person would surely make a difference in the appearance. However, what makes one an educated and learned person requires more than just a good appearance with the clothing. If we couldn’t get better designers in the clothing, then we might have to think about what could be done instead.

We might need to encourage and support the design of education which could transform not just the surface appearance, but the creative and innovative way of education and learning, for and with each of our educators and learners.

Here are some innovative initiatives in Higher Education:

1. Open Learning Initiative under an institutional framework

2. Disruptive innovation such as the MOOC – x MOOC and the continued development of MOOCs (refer to this True History of MOOCs recordings for details about the original MOOCs and some aspects of c MOOCs versus x MOOCs).

3. Narrowing the gaps of net generation with the use of technology in teaching and learning through various networks and platforms.

Posted in Connectivism, Education, technology
Tagged Education, MOOC, oped12, open, technology
1 Comment

September 26, 2012

MOOC x.0 is coming our way!

MOOC 2012 would most likely be called Education 2.0 when millions of students have signed for the various MOOCs. There are more than 1.4 Courserians with Coursera and a total of 33 Universities have partnered with Coursera. There are other MOOCs providers including Udacity and EdX.

Who started off all these MOOCs? What were the historical roots? What was the origin of MOOC?

David Wiley was named the first person to offer a MOOC here. The term MOOC was coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander in response to an open online course designed and led by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. (See wikipedia)

How was the early MOOCs like?

The course was called “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge” and was presented to 25 tuition-paying students at the University of Manitoba in addition to 2,300 other students from the general public who took the online class free of charge. Refer to this MOOC Guide on how MOOC worked and this Change MOOC on how the course works.

What would this MOOC be called?

Is it MOOC 2.0 or MOOC x.0? We have c MOOC and x MOOCs.