A Tale of Three MOOCs

Source: http://richmccue.com/2012/10/04/is-the-mooc-coursera-model-the-future-of-higher-education-in-canada/

In the realm of education, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are all the rage. It naturally followed that, as an educational technology (ETEC) graduate student, I would have to enroll in one and experience it for myself. Having done so, it now falls upon me to reflect upon the experience, gather my thoughts, and share them with you here through my ETEC blog.

Initially, the experience was much worse than I feared. Eventually, it was better than I expected. My initial attempts to find and enroll in a MOOC that interested me met with very little actual success. As a photographer and photography instructor I naturally sought a MOOC on photography. Luckily, or so I thought, I found one. It was in India. I thought that was cool. I thought that it would afford me an opportunity to virtually meet and potentially form friendships with photographers and photo enthusiasts in India. Boy was I wrong!

To begin with, their were technical difficulties. I could not register. The site was up. The forms were there. However, the security system that was in place to prevent robots from enrolling also prevented humans from enrolling. When I wrote to the organizers for support, I had to wait about four days for a response. The response did resolve the problem. But still, four days? That seems a little slow and inattentive.

Second, the photography MOOC was anything but "massive." Once I was able to enroll, I discovered that there were less than 20 people enrolled. Maybe they should have let some of those robots that they so obviously feared enroll too? That might have helped generate at least some action in the course.

Which brings me to my third unfortunate discovery about the MOOC: nothing was happening. They were not covering any material. They were not discussing anything. It seemed that the format of the course was well, unformatted. There was nothing going on. 

In summary, I learned nothing about photography. I did, however, learn that just because someone calls something a MOOC does not mean that it really is one.

Obviously, that so called MOOC was not going to help me fulfill the requirements of the ETEC MOOC assignment. I therefore had to search for another one. Finding one that interested me turned out to be substantially harder than I expected. After exercising great due diligence I found a course offered by Harvard through edX. The course was called The Ancient Greek Hero. Unfortunately, it did not start until March 13th, much too late for this assignment. I had to start looking again.

After even more searching I discovered a course offered through Coursera called 

Contraception: Choices, Culture and Consequences.The course was adapted from the ten-week version at UC San Francisco taught to Nursing students pursuing Master's and Doctoral degrees. It was already well underway when I joined. 

The course was well organized. The required readings were easily assessable through the course site. The procedure of the course was to read the material, answer related questions and, if you wanted to do so, join in a directed online discussion. I was unable to join or experience any of the discussions. However, I was impressed with the material that the instructor provided concerning these discussions. She laid out very clear and considerate guidelines. Considering the volatile nature of the course subject (contraception) and the tendency of people to get very emotional when dealing with it, I thought that the instructor handled the open and online nature of the course very well.

Having joined the contraceptive MOOC relatively late in the game, it was more than half over when I enrolled, I felt that my MOOC experience was somehow still lacking. To make up for this self perceived deficiency, I decided to go ahead and start participating in The Ancient Greek Hero MOOC offered through Harvard. Honestly, I am both happy and sad that I made that decision.

I am happy that I started participating in the Harvard MOOC because, by being involved at the start of the MOOC, I really gained great insight into what I think a MOOC is supposed to be. To begin with it really is massive. There are over 40,000 learners enrolled in the course. We come from over 150 countries. Considering that there are only 196 countries on the whole planet, that is a remarkably high percentage. I am sad because I really like the course but I do not have the time to give it the attention it both requires and deserves. 

To help facilitate learning communities the professor and his assistants sent out an email soliciting information about the learning communities which had evolved on their own. The expressed idea was to make their contact information available to the entire class thereby allowing even more participation in these communities. They did offer to keep it private if that was preferred. The impression was that the professor also wanted to know if and how his students were working together.

All of the material is available online for free through the course website. Most of the material was written and or translated by the professor. In addition to written material, the professor posts videos of himself "lecturing" on the material. The format sort of reminded me of a flipped classroom wherein we the students are expected to read and be familiar with the material before the professor addresses additional points and allows us the opportunity to ask questions. As for asking questions, there is a forum on the course web site that allows one to post their questions, read the questions of other students, read the answers posted, and post answers too. 

The course is very well designed and very well presented. It is possible to earn a certificate of completion by doing the readings and answering the weekly questions. I am not sure how these questions are being assessed. I just did not have the time to read all of the material, all of the posted questions, their answers, and then answer the questions myself.

This brings me to the last point that I wanted to bring up. I found the course offered through Harvard to be very well conceived, constructed, and presented. In fact, I found it incredibly interesting and very time consuming. It drew me in and made me want to keep reading. When I read questions from my fellow learners that I knew I could answer, it took all of my self control to not take the time to answer. Between my three jobs and this ETEC course, adding this MOOC was almost too much. Had I given the course the time and effort that it demands and deserves, I doubt that I would be writing this blog entry right now. I would probably still be in a Starbucks, curled up with my iPad and drinking an Americano while I read plays about Greek heroes and tried to understand them not through my modern eyes but rather through the ancient eyes of the play's intended audience.

In conclusion, this assignment took more time away from my busy schedule than I had expected. It forced me into contact with and gave me exposure to a MOOC that was not a MOOC, a MOOC that was a good example of one and, a MOOC that was an excellent example of one. I now have a much better idea of what a MOOC is and how it operates. If I could make a suggestion on how to make this assignment better I would suggest giving it earlier in the semester, perhaps during the first week. I would also suggest making actually participating in a MOOC part of the assignment. Of course, in order to not overwhelm the students, some of the other assignments would have to be either reduced in scope or, perhaps, removed entirely. Reflecting back on the assignments for this course, I cannot help but feel that my time would have been better spent engaging more deeply in a MOOC than making a "healthy" pizza or learning to speak Klingon. 

Oops! I just realized that I forgot to address the question of how these MOOCs differ from a "traditional" online course. Confining my thoughts to the Harvard MOOC, I think that the main difference is that with so many learners it is easy to just sit back and let other students answer the questions posed by both the professor and the other students. It also seemed like it would be easier to establish learning communities in such a MOOC because with there being so many students, you kind of have to build a support network. Also, with so many fellow learners, you are bound to find more than a few with whom you simply "click."