How free online courses are changing the traditional liberal arts education — from PBS.org
As tuition costs continue to rise, it seems counterintuitive that professors at top universities would give away their courses for free. But that’s exactly what they’re doing, on web-based platforms known as “Massive Open Online Courses.” Spencer Michels reports on how a boom in online learning could change higher education.
I’ve been tagging interesting articles and websites since 2011 here on Diigo. My co-author, Bonnie Stewart, has been tagging MOOC articles here on Delicious. If you don’t feel like reading hundreds of articles, Sir John Daniel provides a solid analysis of MOOCs. Don’t forget to look at the peer reviewed MOOC articles. Several colleagues have found Clay “the McGuyver of MP3 metaphors – explaining all phenomenon in the world through the lens of MP3?s and Napster since 1999? Shirky’s evaluation of MOOCs helpful: Napster, Udacity, and the Academy.
Beyond the MOOC Hype: Answers to the five biggest MOOC questions (Part 1) — from the EvoLLLution NewsWire
Beyond the MOOC hype: Answers to the five biggest MOOC questions (Part 2) — from the EvoLLLution NewsWire
MOOCS, online learning, and the wrong conversation — from insidehighered.com by Joshua Kim
- Where are your institution’s strengths?
- What do you want to be known for?
- Where have your faculty made a name for themselves in research and in global conversations?
- Can you use MOOCS to grow awareness of your strengths?
- Can you use blended and online learning to aggregate demand for degree programs in your specialization?
- Can you find mechanisms to invest in faculty, scholarship, courses, and teaching and learning?
- Lessons learned from wrestling with a MOOC — from The Chronicle by Robert Talbert
- MOOCs, Crowdsourcing, Crisis Mapping — from cbc.ca with Armando Fox and George Siemens on Moocs.
Also:
The Future of Online Education
Now that MOOCs (massive open online courses) have been around for a while, how are they shaping higher education? We talk to Armando Fox about going beyond transplanting on-campus courses into the online world, and thinking about what kind of courses can be effectively taught in the MOOC format. George Siemens on How MOOCs and online learning are changing education globally, and why Canada has been so slow to adopt them.Listen 21:28 - Point: Napster, Udacity, and the Academy (by Clay Shirky)
and
Counterpoint: Questioning Clay Shirky — from insidehighered.com by Aaron Bady
and
A follow up from Clay: Your Massively Open Offline College is broken - Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach Duke University’s First MOOC –February 5, 2013
- MOOCmania — from by David Theo Goldberg — January 21, 2013
- Harvard’s current thinking on MOOCs — February 14, 2013 — by Tony Bates
- Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2012: MOOCs — from Audrey Watters
Great item here as well:
- MOOCs and online learning: Research roundup — from journalistsresource.org by Margaret Weigel on February 13, 2013
- What you need to know about MOOCs — ongoing edits made to this page from chronicle.com
Also, addendums on 7/3/13:
- 7 things you should know about MOOCs — from educause.edu by Kelvin Thompson (University of Central Florida)
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MOOCs, MIT and Magic — from Tony Bates
Addendum on 7/8/13:
- July – 2013
MOOCs: A Systematic Study of the Published Literature 2008-2012 — from irrodl.org by Tharindu Rekha Liyanagunawardena1, Andrew Alexandar Adams, and Shirley Ann Williams
Abstract
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are a recent addition to the range of online learning options. Since 2008, MOOCs have been run by a variety of public and elite universities, especially in North America. Many academics have taken interest in MOOCs recognising the potential to deliver education around the globe on an unprecedented scale; some of these academics are taking a research-oriented perspective and academic papers describing their research are starting to appear in the traditional media of peer reviewed publications. This paper presents a systematic review of the published MOOC literature (2008-2012): Forty-five peer reviewed papers are identified through journals, database searches, searching the Web, and chaining from known sources to form the base for this review. We believe this is the first effort to systematically review literature relating to MOOCs, a fairly recent but massively popular phenomenon with a global reach. The review categorises the literature into eight different areas of interest, introductory, concept, case studies, educational theory, technology, participant focussed, provider focussed, and other, while also providing quantitative analysis of publications according to publication type, year of publication, and contributors. Future research directions guided by gaps in the literature are explored.
Keywords: MOOC; massive open online course; massively open online course; systematic review; connectivism