4. H817Open - An open course in
Open Education
• 7 weeks
• Informal and formal learners
• Running in OpenLearn
• Badges
• 2 ALS moderating forums
• Blog aggregator (h817open.net
• Collaboration-lite activity based
model
• Started March 16th
• Also an OER
12. What worked
• Mixing informal and formal
learners
• Blog aggregator
• Weekly email
• Allowing flexibility
• Activity based approach
• Badges
• Live sessions
13. What I’d do differently next year
• Platform
• Initial community/twitter
activity
• Advice on reciprocity/engaging
• More live sessions
• Limit blog options
• Update content but largely the
same
• More multimedia solutions?
14. What I’ve learnt
• MOOCs are hard work
• MOOCs are scary
• MOOCs are fun
• I believe in open
15. You don’t get this on a conventional
course
http://ingermariec.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/activity-25-a-poem-on-open-education-2/
17. Support
• Peer 2 peer
• Community
champions
• Paid moderators
• Platform based
• Encourage self-help
• Hashtag it
18. Scale
• <1000 you can
create community
• >1000 shared
content becomes
overwhelming
• How do people find
each other?
• How do they cope
with info overload?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/holster/2479746349/
19. Motivation
• Learners with diff
motivations
• Key achievements along
the way
• Highlight vital activities
• Allow catch-up
• Encouraging messages
• Assessment + recognition
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/4266714722/
20. Identity
• Is the community the
identity?
• Is it the academic?
• Does it go beyond the
MOOC?
• Is it explicitly
experimental?
• How would you craft an
opening email?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewidewideworld/2203253497/
21. MOOCs didn’t come from nowhere
University set up OpenLearn in 2006, representing an ongoing development of the open education movement. Influ
the early development of MOOCs, various open learning platforms have been set up by elite institutions; examples
2012 include MIT edX and OU‟s Futurelearn. A key message that emerges is that the evolution of MOOCs is leadi
more players in the market as HEI and private organisations seek to take advantage of these innovations in online
Figure 1: MOOCs and Open Education Timeline
“MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher
Education” Li Yuan (CETIS), Stephen Powell (CETIS)
March 2013
http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2013/667
22. The battle for Open
• Open is not same as free
• Coursera to become elearning
provider
• MOOCs as solution to ‘broken
higher ed’
• Historical narrative excludes
higher ed
25. Does support matter?
• Completion rates
• Increased digital divide?
• Student support
(Relative costs over 8 year lifecycle of a DL course)
26. What’s interesting about MOOCs…
How can our curriculum be more flexible?
Can we build more automatic support to help students?
How can we bridge informal to formal learning?
What is my stance on openness?
People are interested in elearning
Are there smaller achievements we can use for motivation?
What technologies can I use?
27. MOOCs & HE
MOOCs are our friends if we…
– can answer these questions
– don’t ignore them
– don’t panic
– make supported learning worthwhile
– Understand this is a crucial time
http://www.flickr.com/photos/myeye/2181264107/
28. Closing thoughts
Image – Giulia Forsythe
MOOCs are the frontline
in the battle for
openness
The battle for openness
is a proxy for the battle
for the future of
education
The worst thing we can
do is ignore it
Editor's Notes
I’ve called this talk “Surviving the Day of the MOOC” because the sudden interest in MOOCs from outside higher education often feels like an alien invasion
Talk is like an inverted funnel – starts with my personal experience of running a MOOC, then look at some of the broader design issues it raises and finally looking at the bigger issues for higher education
MOOCs were even on Newsnight last night, and you can’t go a week without reading a “MOOCs are the future” type article, so I often feel like this
So I ran an open course, part of our Masters. Subject was open ed, so made sense to run as a MOOC.Ran in our openlearn platform, issues 3 badges,
Mixture of technologyStudents could use own blogging platformEmail turned out to be very important
MOOCs often divided into cMOOCs and xMOOCs but mine had elements of both