Massive open online courses as new educative practice
George SiemensFebruary 29, 2012
Presented to: Universitat de València
NANEC
A decade of openness
Open education resourcesOpen teachingOpen coursesOpen accreditation (very early stages)Open research (coming soon)
2008, 2009, 2011
Open online courses
OverviewContentTeaching
Learner supportLearner activity & assessment
OverviewContentTeaching
Learner supportLearner activity & assessment
This is an unusual course. It does not consist of a body of content you are supposed to remember. Rather, the learning in the course results from the activities you undertake, and will be different for each person.
In addition, this course is not conducted in a single place or environment. It is distributed across the web. We will provide some facilities. But we expect your activities to take place all over the internet. We will ask you to visit other people's web pages, and even to create some of your own.
The course objectives are rather straightforward:
* Develop skills in using technology as a tool for networking, sharing, narrating, and creative self-expression* Frame a digital identity wherein you become both a practitioner in and interrogator of various new modes of networking* Critically examine the digital landscape of communication technologies as emergent narrative forms and genres
Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends.
Coursera is committed to making the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it. We envision people throughout the world, in both developed and developing countries, using our platform to get access to world-leading education that has so far been available only to a tiny few. We see them using this education to improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.
We believe university-level education can be both high quality and low cost. Using the economics of the Internet, we've connected some of the greatest teachers to hundreds of thousands of students all over the world.
OverviewContentTeaching
Learner supportLearner activity & assessment
Content Progress
Badges
Profile/status
Coursera, Udacity, Codeacademy:Formal (traditional) course structure and flow
DS106/EC&I831/MOOCs: Content as a starting point, learners expected to create/extend
OverviewContentTeaching
Learner supportLearner activity & assessment
Udacity/Coursera/Codeacademy: Traditional relationship between teacher/learner
Formal, structured teaching/content provision.
Learners expected to duplicate/master what they are taught
Ongoing presence
Live Weekly Lectures/Discussion sessions
MOOCs/DS106: Changed relationship between teacher/learner
Distributed, chaotic, emergent.
Learners expected to create, grow, expand domain and share personal sensemaking through artifact-creation
OverviewContentTeaching
Learner supportLearner activity & assessment
Coursera/Udacity/Codeacademy: Centralized discussion forum support
MOOCs/DS106: Distributed, often blog-based, learner-created forums and spaces
Office hours and in-forum support – staffed by grad students
Self-organization and sub-networks
Sensegiving through artefact creation and sharing
Sensemaking/giving through language games
Knowledge domain expansion
Wayfinding cues, symbols
Social organization through creating sharing
OverviewContentTeaching
Learner supportLearner activity & assessment
Learners generally complete some level of activity for formative and summative evaluation (quizzes, assignments, papers, create artifacts) in open online courses.
Evaluation is either automated (Udacity), instructor graded (DS106/CCK), or peer-commented (to some degree, all open courses)
Type of Course Formal Credit?
EC&I831 University
CCK/08/09/11/12 University
LAK11/12 No
Coursera No
Udacity Udacity recognition
DS106 University
Codeacademy Badges
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.
COGNITIVE:learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse
TEACHING: design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes
SOCIAL:“the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities.
Coursera/Udacity: Emphasizes teaching, partial cognitive, limited social
MOOCs & DS106 model: Holistic, teaching presence, but emphasizing social/cognitive
7 Primary Tensions in open online courses
Automation vs. Creation
Social vs. Scripted
Structured vs. Self-Organized
University-based vs. Informal learning
Assessment/recognition vs. Personal growth
Functioning in existing system vs. Transforming existing system
Learner owned vs. Organization owned interaction spaces
change.mooc.ca
Twitter: gsiemens
www.elearnspace.org/blog
http://www.solaresearch.org/
Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2012: Vancouver
http://lak12.sites.olt.ubc.ca/