The Emergence of MOOC

In online education there seems to be a considerable trend moving us toward online learning in a collaborative open space arrangement. Propelling this forward, MOOCs have advanced this trend by created an enormous collaborative space where colleagues in ay discipline may work together to facilitate a course. You may ask... What is a MOOC? Well great question!!

 

 

• M = Massive: needs tons of participants (this is why my own History MOOC failed)
• O = Open: all resources must be available on the open web to anyone who wants to join
• O = Online: no on-site attendance required, everything is online
• C = Course: has a course structure, with set facilitator(s), topics and timeline

 

These MOOC courses seem to work where the participants or users are distributed and course materials are dispersed across the web. The departure from the days of learning management systems (LMS) such as Blackboard or Moodle is the next wave in sharing freely the ideas and resources and learning processes that can happen in an online course. There have been all types of MOOCs that have been created and I want to bring your attention to just a few!

Examples of MOOC:

     Education and Technology MOOC

This course will introduce participants to the major contributions being made to the field of instructional technology by researchers today. Each week, a new professor or researcher will introduce his or her central contribution to the field.

http://change.mooc.ca/

Creativity and Multicultural Communication MOOC

Creativity and Multicultural Communication (CMC11) is a thirteen week MOOC and a 15 week Empire State College credit course that utilizes the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explores their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning through discussions of creativity and communication.

http://www.cdlprojects.com/cmc11blog/

 

Feel free to check out this short Youtube video that explains this trend in more detail. Maybe you and some colleagues can create your very own MOOC!

 

Mooc in Visual detail

 

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc