Categories: Communication Design, Technology
Summary:
Zutshi, O'Hare, and Rodafinos sought to determine what students felt about their experiences with Massive open online courses (MOOCs), and what the common issues they posted about in their personal blogs. The first concern with this study was the sample size of 21 blog posts. MOOCs by definition, are massive, and their research approach should be considered when weighing their conclusions. Additionally, is there a specific tie to blogs and MOOCs? Their results, unsurprisingly, were vague; in their own words, "students reported mixed experiences and identified both positive and negative aspects" (p. 227).
They reported a need for clarity of assessment instructions and a lack of feeling a part of the class because of student size and the students' impression about the inpersonal nature of the MOOCs.
Citation-worthy:
"MOOCs are a comparatively recent phenomenon in online education. The term MOOC is often traced to a course run in 2008 on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (see, e.g., Mackness, Mak, andWilliams 2010) that allowed anyone to participate in the course alongside a small number of for-credit students. Since then, the term has come to refer to any online educational course that is available at no or minimal cost, is open to a very large number of students, and for which the educational materials and resources are freely available online. Although often characterized as a single phenomenon in the popular media, the term can encompass quite a wide variety of online courses. For instance, a distinction can be made between cMOOCs and xMOOCs (Daniel 2012). cMOOCs are characterized as MOOCs that are more strongly based on connectivist ideals, are often less structured, and are typically influenced by ideals similar to those of Illich (1971) regarding empowering learners and providing access to learning materials to all who might wish to learn. By contrast, xMOOCs are referred to as the Ivy League-type, university-run, venturecapital- funded MOOCs with comparatively fixed and prescriptive curricula. Coursera, Udacity, and edX MOOCs are examples of xMOOCs. There is also an interesting subfamily of MOOC platforms entirely outside of the university system (e.g., Khan Academy, Peer-to-Peer University, Udemy, Futurelearn), offering calendar-based or complete-at-your-own-timeline courses" (Zutshi, O'Hare, Rodafinos, 2013, pp. 218-219).
"A number of concerns regardingMOOCs remain. Three common ones are regarding the business model, the pedagogical approach(es) employed, and the low completion rates (Daniel 2012)" (Zutshi, O'Hare, Rodafinos, 2013, p. 219).
