MOOC
Introduction to MOOC:
Massive open online courses or MOOC, have been around for
more than two years and have really made an impact in the education system. It has not only opened the doors of the
walled universities (virtually) to practically everyone with access to the
required technology but has also been able to carry out the philosophy of
“education for everyone”. It has been one of the best results of internet/web
technology. The courses from
various universities are available online either during a specified time period
or as self-paced. In most of the courses, any one with intent to learn can
enroll themselves for the course.
Certification: In
the EDX courses taken by me, the qualifying marks for getting the certificate
have been 60%. There are many MOOC providers but a few of them have managed to
distinguish themselves such as EDX, Coursera, Novoed, Udacity among others. (1)
Among all of them I have personally found the EDX courses to
be more research and commitment oriented in terms of time and expectations. Coursera
has been able to have one of the largest numbers of courses listed under them,
which are being offered online, but in few courses I have experienced that they
do not keep the preciousness of delivery intact. I understand that individuals
and universities offer the courses but since it is offered on Coursera platform
thus it also contributes to the content image of Coursera. I really wish they
could also streamline the content part in a more cohesive and effective manner.
Personal journey and
learning:
My personal journey of successfully carrying out a MOOC
course started with “Creativity, Innovation and Change” offered on Coursera
platform with Pennsylvania State University. Although I completed the course
but somewhere I felt that it felt a tad bit short of real delivery in terms of
content and that left me wanting to do more courses to understand the delivery
model of various platform. I found out that self-paced course do not work for
me, I enjoy courses, which have deadlines and requisite tasks. But I have also
taken a course on Novoed, which is “Practice based Research in Arts” and I had
given up by enrolment in the course as I was not able to complete the
assignment but I found myself recalling the lectures more than often and got
myself enrolled again so that I can access the lectures. Thus the motivation
has not only been to earn a certificate but also to learn. In terms of my
experience, learning was equivalent to the class room learning, sometimes, if I
may say so was better because there was a degree of anonymity attached and thus
the chance to redeem myself for that course. In a typical college scenario,
there is a tendency to have opinions about individual student based on their
behavior and results and these opinions are quite tough to break in both good
and not so good scenarios. I was very happy that I had to face no such biases
and thus really appreciated the ‘fairness’ aspect of the learning system.
My experience has also been positive because I have been
able to engage myself with the courses, which I would not have got the
opportunity to learn in a campus based learning system where there is emphasis
on one specialization. With MOOC, I find myself able to learn diverse things,
which otherwise would have never been available to me.
The only negative which I found in the beginning is not
being able to read the entire lesson like a text book but at the same time, the
attention demanded is so high while listening to lectures that the learning in
those 10 -15 minutes have been tremendous without any distractions. With these
lectures being in front of me, I have also been able to organize my own
lectures better.
Future expectations:
I see the future of MOOC being one where they would be able
to float modules across various networked platforms leading a student to get
credible degrees against the successful completion of courses carried out by an
individual. This will be truly democratization of learning as expressed by
Andrew Ho, an Associate Professor in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, “This is about the democratization of
learning: learners are in control. We are the beginning of an exciting effort
to understand how people learn and how to educate well and effectively at
scale.” (2)
MOOC has made available the best courses with credible contents and lectures,
it has been made available for free in most of the cases and access to verified
certification at a nominal fees, the ideal situation would be to keep it in the
same format of being openly accessible to everyone.
Source:
(1) http://www.skilledup.com/blog/mooc-differentiation-in-the-marketplace/
accessed on 1st August 2014 and personal experience.
(2) https://www.edx.org/blog/harvard-mit-release-working-papers-open#.U9uFbVZS_ld accessed on 1st August 2014
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