MOOCs — Massive Open Online Courses

How MOOCs are training tomorrow’s workforce [Lapowsky]

On 09/06/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, business side of he, career development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, internet, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, professional development, training / L&D, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

But existing MOOC providers like Udacity and Coursera aren’t the only ones using free online education to prepare people for jobs. The Muse, a career advice and job search site, recently launched Muse University, which trains students in subjects like landing a promotion and management 101. Aquent, a Boston-based staffing company for digital marketing professionals, also recently launched a MOOC platform of its own called Aquent Gymnasium. Its first class, Coding for Designers, launched in July, and so far, more than 8,000 students have enrolled. The goal of that class, says Andrew Miller, program director of Aquent Gymnasium, is to help designers trained in the print medium understand coding well enough that they can design for a digital medium. It’s a skill, Miller says, that Aquent’s clients were clamoring for. “Most designers can make pictures, and that’s it. Nowadays, people want designers who can produce prototypes,” he says. “We’re not trying to turn designers into developers. We’re trying to turn them into designers developers want to work with.”

Will IBM’s Watson — or a similar set of technologies — be a key ingredient of our future MOOCs? [Christian]

On 09/05/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, blended learning, career development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, global / globalization, health, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, lifelong learning, marketing/social marketing, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, passions, personalized/customized learning, professional development, research, second screen apps, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, social media, society, storytelling, strategy, streams of content, teaching online, technologies for your home, training / L&D, trends, ubiquitous learning, United States, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual K-12 schools, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
IBM Watson continues to expand into different disciplines/areas, which currently include:

Healthcare
Finance
Customer Service

But Watson is also entering the marketing and education/research realms.

I see a Watson-type-of-tool as being a key ingredient for future MOOCs and the best chance for MOOCs to morph into something very powerful indeed — offloading the majority of the workload to computers/software/intelligent tutoring/learning agents, while at the same time allowing students to connect with each other and/or to Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) as appropriate.

The price of education could hopefully come way down — depending upon the costs involved with licensing Watson or a similar set of technologies — as IBM could spread out their costs to multiple institutions/organizations. This vision represents another important step towards the “Walmart of Education” that continues to develop before our eyes.

Taking this even one step further, I see this system being available to us on our mobile devices as well as in our living rooms — as the telephone, the television, and the computer continue to converge. Blended learning on steroids.

What would make this really powerful would be to provide:

The ability to create narratives/stories around content
To feed streams of content into Watson for students to tap into
Methods of mining data and using that to tweak algorithms, etc. to improve the tools/learning opportunities

Such an architecture could be applied towards lifelong learning opportunities — addressing what we now know as K-12, higher education, and corporate training/development.

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Some additional questions for next year’s “Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology”

On 08/27/2013, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, blended learning, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, elearning, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, higher education, innovation, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, student-related, teaching & learning, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Inside Higher Ed 2013 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology — by Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman

From DSC:
I would like to propose some additional — and/or different — questions for next year’s survey:

Original question:

Can online courses achieve learning outcomes that are equivalent to inperson courses?

Another potential question:

How will face-to-face courses compete with what’s being achieved via online/digitally-based courses and mechanisms? (One potential answer, go hybrid.)

Original questions:

What do professors and administrators see as the most important indicators of quality in online education? How does the quality of online courses compare with the quality of inperson courses?

Another question:

If we turned the level of scrutiny (which is good and appropriate, BTW) that’s being applied to online courses to our face-to-face (F2F) courses, how would our F2F courses look/perform? How would they compare in terms of quality, achieving learning outcomes, and in terms of long-term ROI?

Original question:

What do faculty and technology officers make of MOOCs (massive open online courses), and how do they perceive media coverage of the phenomenon?

Another potential question (to students, ed tech staff, admins, faculty members):

What might MOOCs morph into and how might those innovations affect the higher education landscape?

Other questions:

Should we be looking to faculty members to initiate change? Or somewhere else?
(Faculty members’ plates are full, they may or may not believe in the value/benefits of technology, they may or may not be gifted in using technology, and many faculty members don’t have the incentive systems necessary to move forward with online learning or even enhance their F2F courses with more hybrid-based learning approaches.)
.
Will it take a team-based approach to be competitive in the future?
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(Addressed to faculty members teaching F2F courses)
Do you know each student’s name in your F2F course and what each of them are majoring in? How often do you talk to them? Do you keep track of who you’ve talked to and when? Do you know what goals each of your students are pursuing? How often can/do they contact you? Do you find it more difficult to engage your students in the year 2013 as opposed to 2000? Do you hold the power to change things at your institution? If so, what have you done with that power?
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Are curriculums keeping up with what’s needed or are institutions of higher education falling behind? Are we being responsive enough, realizing that the rate/trajectory of change is now exponential, not linear?

Obama’s Ratings for Higher Ed [Jaschik]

On 08/22/2013, in budgets, business side of he, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, education technology, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, legislatures / government / legal, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, by Daniel Christian

Obama’s Ratings for Higher Ed — from insidehighered.com by Scott Jaschik

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

WASHINGTON — President Obama appears to be making good on his vow to propose a “shake-up” for higher education.

Early Thursday, he released a plan that would:

Create a new rating system for colleges in which they would be evaluated based on various outcomes…

Link student aid to these ratings…

Create a new program that would give colleges a “bonus” if they enroll large numbers of students eligible for Pell Grants.

Toughen requirements on students receiving aid.

…

The White House also said President Obama is “challenging” colleges to “adopt one or more” of practices he called “promising” to “offer breakthroughs on cost, quality or both.” Among them: competency-based learning that moves away from seat time, course redesign (including massive open online courses), the use of technology for student services, and more efforts to recognize prior learning.

Also see:

ShakingUpHigherEd-Barack-Obama-August-22-2013

What types of innovative learning experiences can be crafted as “TV” becomes more interactive, participatory, and engaging? [Christian]

On 08/21/2013, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Apple, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, interactivity, interface design, internet, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, lifelong learning, media/film, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, participation, personalized/customized learning, second screen apps, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, user experience (UX), user interface design, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The massive convergence of the telephone, the television, and the computer continues. How that media gets to us is also changing (i.e. the cord cutting continues).

What types of innovative learning experiences can be crafted as “TV” becomes more interactive, participatory, and engaging? What happens if technologies like WebRTC make their way into our browsers and we can videoconference with each other without having to download anything?

What doors open for for us when Google, Apple, or an Amazon.com delivers your “shows” vs. NBC/ABC/CBS/etc.?

The items below cause me to reflect on those questions…

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Streaming devices lead the way to Smart TV — from nytimes.com by Brian Stelter

Julia Yellow

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Is Google ready to buy its way into TV with an NFL deal? — from allthingsd.com by Peter Kafka

Excerpt:

Here’s a fun combination to ponder: The world’s most powerful media company and America’s most popular sport.

That could happen if Google buys the rights to the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package, the all-you-can-eat subscription-TV service currently owned by DirecTV.

Cord Cliff Coming: What happens to TV when Netflix streams live events? — from allthingsd.com by Ben Elowitz, CEO, Wetpaint

Addendums on 8/22/13:

CBS, Time Warner Cable, and the Disruption of TV — from newyorker.com by Ken Auletta
Netflix inks exclusive deal for first-run Weinstein films — from cnet.comThe Internet’s biggest on-demand video service will stream movies from the indie film studio before any other pay-TV providers starting in 2016, the same year it kicks off a similar Disney deal.
Vevo reportedly inks music video content deals with Apple and Samsung, Apple TV app could launch this week — from appleinsider.com by AppleInsider Staff
Music video platform Vevo is said to have signed deals with both Apple and Samsung to deliver streaming and on-demand content via set-top boxes and television sets, with a possible Apple TV debut coming as soon as this week.
Disney’s ESPN Holds Preliminary Talks for Web-Based TV –– from bloomberg.com by Christopher Palmeri & Andy Fixmer
Why Apple should buy NFL digital rights — from money.cnn.com by David Goldman
The tv of tomorrow and the living room of the future— from visual.ly <– a very solid infographic

The tv of tomorrow and the living room of the future

by beutlerink.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

What happened in online learning over the summer? [Parts 1, 2, and 3 by Tony Bates]

On 08/20/2013, in adjunct faculty, Canada, community colleges, faculty, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, society, universities, by Daniel Christian

What happened in online learning over the summer? – 2 — by Tony Bates

Excerpt:

MOOCs
Peters, M. (2013) Massive Open Online Courses and Beyond: the Revolution to Come Truthout, August 17

This is an excellent, comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of where MOOCs are going.

What Michael Peters does is to set MOOCs within ‘a wider set of socio-technological changes that might be better explained within a theory of postindustrial education focusing on social media as the new culture.‘

.

Also see:

What happened in online learning in the summer? – 1 — by Tony Bates
What happened in online learning in the summer? – 3 — by Tony Bates

Turn education into a lifelong experience — from clomedia.com by Caroline Mol and Nick Van Dam
MOOCs ensure development remains relevant. The future of work depends on people’s ability to build intellectual capital.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Most of the discussions about MOOCs focus on the experience and potential impact on higher education, which we will not discuss here. Rather, we will talk about their impact on the 21st century workforce and corporations. It is very exciting that, according to edX, more than 50 percent of enrollments in such courses are professionals from all over the world.

Looking at market dynamics, increasing globalization, rapid advancements in technology and the continuously changing business environment, it becomes increasingly important that people up their game and continue to invest in their development to stay relevant in the workforce.

…

In addition to employing people with the right skills, corporations are looking more and more for specialized expertise in the so-called human cloud — the virtual, on-demand workforce. Success for a 21st century workforce is leaders’ ability to predict which competencies will be valued in the future and to accelerate mastery of those competencies.

.

From DSC:
While I might take some different viewpoints on a couple of things in the article, the importance of reinventing oneself — i.e. staying relevant — is key; and what MOOCs morph into might be a key ingredient for the corporate world.

StayingRelevantDanielChristian-August2013

Moody’s report forecasts a gloomy future for public universities [Kelderman]

On 08/16/2013, in business side of he, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, by Daniel Christian

Moody’s report forecasts a gloomy future for public universities — from insidehighered.com by Eric Kelderman

Excerpt:

Moody’s analysis of median fiscal data from 2012 show that enrollment at public colleges was essentially flat, revenues grew less than 2 percent, and expenses increased more than 3 percent—nearly twice as fast as inflation.

Also see:

Pricing pressures likely to hurt private colleges, S&P says — insidehighered.com
Louisiana colleges hit hard in budget cuts — from educationdive.com by Daniel Shumski
More college students living at home to cut costs — from educationdive.com by Daniel Shumski

Also see:

A “Napster Moment” in Education — from news.yahoo.com
Excerpt:
Digital education is like whitewater rafting. Or like the Napster era in music. The two analogies were among many that came up yesterday as panelists considered the future of technology in education at a Scientific American and Macmillan Science & Education summit on “Learning in the Digital Age,” at Google’s New York headquarters.

The MOOC Business Plan — from campustechnology.com by David Raths
With millions of students taking high-quality MOOCs for free, schools and course providers are now searching for a viable business model.

Excerpt:

Name a product sold in stores for thousands of dollars that can be obtained for free online. If you’re struggling for an answer, don’t be surprised–no company would last very long under those circumstances. Yet that’s exactly the predicament in which higher education finds itself as MOOCs begin to disrupt the traditional post-secondary model. Schools are giving away what was once their most valued treasure–the intellectual property of their faculty–for nothing.

Obviously, it’s not a sustainable business model, so what’s next? Where will the money come from? While it may seem surprising, no one really seems to know. For many colleges and universities, the current environment more closely resembles a high-stakes game of musical chairs–everyone is terrified of being left without a chair when the music stops. But the game is being played by more than just schools. From a business standpoint, higher education is ripe for reinvention, and it has attracted a slew of companies–both old and new–that smell significant profit.

…

For Coursera, this task is already under way. “Some business models are becoming clear,” says Andrew Ng, cofounder of the for-profit company. “Some we are confident will work; others we are still experimenting with.”

“You could have a certificate of a course completed at Duke University [NC]–that could be a valuable credential,” adds Ng. “We have projected that this alone will lead us to sustainability. In the first quarter of the signature track, we brought in $220,000, and in the second quarter, which hasn’t ended yet, we roughly doubled that amount. So we project that by itself that will make us sustainable.”

The rise of MOOCs: A special issue from Campus Technology

On 08/06/2013, in game-changing environment, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, by Daniel Christian

Special issue re: MOOCs from Campus Technology

Summary of Educause Sprint: “Beyond MOOCs: Is IT Creating a New, Connected Age?”

On 08/02/2013, in higher education, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, reinvent, staying relevant, by Daniel Christian

Summaries, resources re: EDUCAUSE Sprint 2013 (July 30 – August 1)
Beyond MOOCs: Is IT Creating a New, Connected Age?

‘Shake Up’ for Higher Ed — from insidehighered.com by Scott Jaschik

Excerpt:

President Obama vowed Wednesday that he would soon unveil a plan to promote significant reform in higher education — with an emphasis on controlling what colleges charge students and families.

“[I]n the coming months, I will lay out an aggressive strategy to shake up the system, tackle rising costs, and improve value for middle-class students and their families. It is critical that we make sure that college is affordable for every single American who’s willing to work for it,” said Obama, in a speech at Knox College.

…

“Families and taxpayers can’t just keep paying more and more and more into an undisciplined system where costs just keep on going up and up and up. We’ll never have enough loan money, we’ll never have enough grant money, to keep up with costs that are going up 5, 6, 7 percent a year. We’ve got to get more out of what we pay for,” Obama said.

From DSC:
At a $175 billion per year support for postsecondary education, if the Federal Government starts redirecting this flow of $$$…I’ll bet we’ll see some change…and rather quickly I might add.

The Walmart of Education (as predicted back in December 2008) is now here, but I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. To what will we change? At least one major piece of the answer to that question is that we will see the continued — but increasing — use of teams of specialists that will be commissioned to create low-cost, highly-engaging content. Though expensive to create originally, such teams will more than make their money back because of the massive number of students such “courses” will serve.

From the Walmart of Education page on 4/11/09:

…I wanted to offer another idea that might help fund engaging, multimedia-based, online-based learning materials:
(NOTE: The figures I use are not accurate, but rather, they are used for illustration purposes only.)

Let’s reallocate funds towards course development, and then let’s leverage those learning materials throughout the world!

Reallocate funds to course development, and bring costs WAAAAYYYY down and ACCESS WAAAYYY UP!

.

For students: Bring costs waaaayyyyy down and access waaayyy up!

Plus, no more defaulted loans, students could experience richer content, students wouldn’t have to wait as much on financial aid decisions. There would be fewer financial aid headaches; and the resources devoted to figuring out & processing financial aid could be reduced. The issue will be how an institution can differentiate itself in such a new world…but that issue will have to be dealt with in the future anyway.

Reflections on “How to make online courses massively personal” [Peter Norvig]

On 07/25/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learning agents, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, love of learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, professional development, reinvent, social learning / networks, streams of content, student-related, teaching & learning, training / L&D, ubiquitous learning, using teams, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

How to make online courses massively personal — from scientificamerican.com by Peter Norvig
How thousands of online students can get the effect of one-on-one tutoring

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Educators have known for 30 years that students perform better when given one-on-one tutoring and mastery learning—working on a subject until it is mastered, not just until a test is scheduled. Success also requires motivation, whether from an inner drive or from parents, mentors or peers.

Will the rise of massive open online courses (MOOCs) quash these success factors? Not at all. In fact, digital tools offer our best path to cost-effective, personalized learning.

I know because I have taught both ways.

…

Inspired by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon’s comment that “learning results from what the student does and thinks and only from what the student does and thinks,” we created a course centered on the students doing things and getting frequent feedback. Our “lectures” were short (two- to six-minute) videos designed to prime the attendees for doing the next exercise. Some problems required the application of mathematical techniques described in the videos. Others were open-ended questions that gave students a chance to think on their own and then to hash out ideas in online discussion forums.

…

That is why a properly designed automated intelligent tutoring system can foster learning outcomes as well as human instructors can, as Kurt van Lehn found in a 2011 meta-analysis in Educational Psychologist.

From DSC:
A potential learning scenario in the future:

“Learning Agent, go find me a MOOC (or what the MOOC will morph into) about ________.”
Similar to a Google Alert, the Learning Agent returns some potential choices. I select one.
.
Once there… “System, let’s begin.” I begin taking the online-based course — which is stocked full of a variety of media, some interactive, that I get to choose from for each module/item based upon my personal preferences — and the intelligent tutoring system kicks in and responses at relevant points based upon my questions, answers, responses. The system uses AI, data mining, learning analytics, to see how I’m doing. It tracks this for each student. Humans regularly review the data to begin noticing patterns and to tweak the algorithms based upon these patterns.
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If at any time I find the responses from the automated intelligent tutoring system confusing or weak, I will:
- Make note of why I’m confused or disagree with the response (via an online-based form entry on the page; this feedback gets instantly sent to the Team of Specialists in charge of the “course.” They will use it to tweak the course/algorithms.)
- Ask to speak with a person, at which point I am asked to choose whether my inquiry would best be handled by a Subject Matter Expert (SME) at $___/hour/request (more expensive price) or by an entry-level tutor (at a lower $___/hour/request). I then enter into a videoconference-based tutoring session with them, and they can access my records and even take over my screen (if I let them). Once I get my questions answered, I return to the course and continue.

From DSC:
A twist on the above scenario would be if a cohorted group of people — not age-based — met in a physical place/room and were able to bounce ideas off of each other before anyone ante’d up for additional expenses by contacting a tutor and/or an SME. They could even share the expenses of the “call” (so-to-speak).

The Coming Crossroads in Higher Education [U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan]

On 07/16/2013, in 21st century, budgets, business side of he, change, changing business models, education technology, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The Coming Crossroads in Higher Education: Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association Annual Meeting, July 9, 2013 — from distance-educator.com with thanks going out to Mr. John Shank for Scooping this item.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

But I would also make the case to you today that higher education is approaching a crossroads, where leaders will be asked to choose between incremental and transformational change.

…

Polls show that three out of four Americans believe—and I quote—”to get ahead in life these days, it is necessary to get a college education.” At the same time, three in four Americans also believe that college today is too expensive for most people to afford. That fundamental gap—between aspirations and opportunity—is one we must close.

…

I believe that higher education is at a crossroads because our current model of student and institutional aid is ultimately unsustainable. It is incapable of meeting the bipartisan goal that President Obama articulated four years ago—that America will again lead the world in college attainment by 2020.

…

Speaking in broad-brush terms, I believe we will see two ideas take hold in response to these threats to higher education.

The first response is that the system of state and federal institutional grants and loans will start to shift more toward a performance-based and outcomes-based system than is the case today—and one that does more to reward innovation.

…

The federal government currently provides more than $175 billion a year to postsecondary institutions and students through grants, loans, and direct school support. But together we must do a better job of defining and linking aid to satisfactory academic progress, meaningful institutional performance, and student learning outcomes.

We absolutely must continue to invest in higher education. But we must also use taxpayer dollars more wisely.

This shift in the direction of performance-based funding is already underway.

…

Further evidence of the policy shift underway is that many states—including Indiana, Tennessee, Oregon, and Missouri—are moving in bipartisan fashion to incorporate elements of performance-based funding in higher education.

…

Now, if the first response to the challenges of cost, completion, and accountability is likely to be more performance-based funding and new incentives for innovation, a second response is likely to be a leveraging of educational technology to increase student learning as well as institutional performance and productivity.

We still have a lot to learn and perfect about online learning, MOOCs, simulations and gaming, and other uses of educational technology. But there is no question that a digital revolution is already underway in higher education. And its vast potential has only begun to be tapped.

From DSC:
I hear a lot about resistance to change; in fact, as I come from the tech side of the academic house, I experience it on an ongoing basis.

But I do wonder if the pace of change within higher education might accelerate when more of that $175 billion a year starts flowing elsewhere…?

Learning Ecosystems

How MOOCs are training tomorrow’s workforce [Lapowsky]

Obama’s Ratings for Higher Ed [Jaschik]

What happened in online learning over the summer? [Parts 1, 2, and 3 by Tony Bates]

Turn education into a lifelong experience [Mol & Van Dam]

Moody’s report forecasts a gloomy future for public universities [Kelderman]

The MOOC Business Plan [Raths]

The rise of MOOCs: A special issue from Campus Technology

Summary of Educause Sprint: “Beyond MOOCs: Is IT Creating a New, Connected Age?”

Reflections on ‘Shake Up’ for Higher Ed [Jaschik]

The Coming Crossroads in Higher Education [U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan]

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