GoogleTranslate Service


Some thoughts about MOOCs

April 29th, 2014 by Graham Attwell

MOOCs are now set on the downside of the hype cycle and it is not difficult to find critics – or even those predicting their immanent end.

I can’t see much sign of them going away = if anything there seems to be more and more MOOCs appearing – although that may be just a result of better discoverability. However there does seem to be huge variation ind ensign, duration and above all quality although we do not really have any agreed criteria for measuring quality.

Within the European Employ ID project, which is researching employment adaptability and the use of technology for supporting coaching and continuing professional development for Public Employment workers in Europe, we have promised, for better or worse, to organise a MOOC. In fact, I think this was promised for the final year of thee project, which has only just started, but with plenty of enthusiasm from the public employment services and from project partners, we are planning to bring it forward to next year.

We also decided that we would all (about 14 of us) would sign up for a MOOc and exchange our experiences. I am a bit behind and will start a MOOC next week on Digital Curation provided by Kings Collage London who interestingly, eschewing the commercial and consortium platforms, are using their own platform built on top of Moodle.

Project partners have signed up for a range of topics from Shakespeare to producing a mobile app. So far the experience – or at least the refection on the experience, is very varied. A lot seems to be down to the design of the MOOC. A number of people found course providers had underestimated the time it would take to follow the course. Probably the major criticism was lack of contact with other learners, although this seemed particularly an issue on MOOCs offered through the Coursera platform. Peronsally I am rather overwhelmed by the volume of contact from co-students on my Digita Curation course and that is two weeks before its starts.

I suspect the divide between so called c-MOOCs and x_MOOCs is more of a continuum than a binary divide. In that respect Coursera or indeed Code Academy could be seen as on one end of that continuum with individual students engaging with digit materials produced through a well designed workflow but with little or no peer group interaction. The various so styled c-MOOCs stand on the other, with developers left very much to design their own programmes and with a focus of peer learning.

Despite the issue sod design and quality, the sheer numbers of learners signing up for MOOCs deserves some reflection. I interpret it as a vast pent up demand for opportunities for learning. That many of those participating in MOOcs have already a degree is hardly surprising. These were the people who would have participated in face to face Adult Education programmes, had they been available. And even before austerity devastated much of previous provision in European countries, such provision was far to narrow to meet demand. MOOCs have enabled a massive expansion in the scope of subjects on offer as Open Education.

So, even though I sympathise with the critics, particularly as to the quality of pedagogy, I think we should see MOOCs in that light. MOOCs are one iteration in the use of technology to greatly expand Open Education and to make that education available to everyone.

Please follow and like us:

Comments are closed.

  • Search Pontydysgu.org

    Social Media




    News Bites

    Cyborg patented?

    Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.

    Please follow and like us:


    Racial bias in algorithms

    From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter

    This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.

    Please follow and like us:


    Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years

    Via The Canary.

    The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).

    Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.

    The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.

    Please follow and like us:


    Quality Training

    From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.

    Please follow and like us:


    Other Pontydysgu Spaces

    • Pontydysgu on the Web

      pbwiki
      Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
      Sounds of the Bazaar Radio LIVE
      Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.

      We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.

      Please follow and like us:
  • Twitter

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Meta

  • Categories