History, Current Status, Future Potential

MOOCs 101

Autar KawDepartment of Mechanical Engineering

November 13, 2012

1

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. It is defined as an online course with large participation and access via the web.

Accepted definition of MOOCs includes:• Open Access – Do not

need to pay a fee or be registered student• Scalability – Designed to

support indefinite number of students

Definition

2

• 2001 - Open Courseware Initiative of MIT

• Utah State University 2007 • Graduate course in Open Education

• 5 students turned to group of 50 in 8 countries

• University of Prince Edward Island coined the term MOOC

• Course in Connectivism and Connective Knowledge

• 25 university students joined 2,300 other students

Early MOOCs

3

What is a cMOOC?

Link

4

Student Success in a cMOOC

Link

5

• In 2011, Thrun and Norvig offered a course in Artificial Intelligence.

• In 2012, the major players in MOOCs emerged from selective universities thru companies such as Coursera, Udacity, and edX.

Recent MOOCs

6

A View of xMOOCs

Link

7

• You can make your own MOOC through Blackboard, Canvas, Google Course Builder, Reddit

• People are mashing up MOOCs and call them Mechanical MOOCs (First course in Programming)• Teach using open courseware of MIT

• Use quizzes and online exercises from Codecademy

• Study Groups by Open Study and P2P

• Email scheduler

Self MOOCs

8

• Cannot be free for too long

• Real-world experience is missing

• Technical difficulties

• Students who prefer structure

• Academic dishonesty

• Responsible for own learning

Issues with MOOCs*

*Source: Onlinecolleges.net, July 11, 20129

• A matching service for companies

• Certifications for credit

• Continuing education

• Google Adsense partner

• Provide online course materials for schools

• 2tor offers online degrees thru several institutions for full tuition

Self-sustaining MOOCs

10

• Putting upward pressure on university teaching

• Decentralizing services

• Meeting students’ needs

• Serve K-12 for AP classes

Disruption from MOOCs*

*Source: Educase 2012: 5 ways online learning is disrupting education: Brian Warmoth, Nov 7, 2012 11

END

MOOCs 101

12