Please scroll down a few lines for the start of the activity post proper, thank you.
Compare either DS106
or the Change MOOC with offerings from Udacity or Coursera . (You may not be able to access a course on these sites without signing up – there is no need to do this but you do need to ascertain what you can from the information around the course and the approach of the providers.)
Write a blog post comparing the courses with regards to:
technology
pedagogy
general approach and philosophy.
Remember to tag your blog post with #h817open and to read and comment on some of the posts of your fellow students.
DS106: Digital Storytelling (also affectionately known as ds106) is an open, online course that happens at various times throughout the year at the University of Mary Washington... but you can join in whenever you like and leave whenever you need. This course is free to anyone who wants to take it, and the only requirements are a real computer, a hardy internet connection, preferrably a domain of your own and some commodity web hosting, and all the creativity you can muster.
Change MOOC
This course will introduce participants to the major contributions being made to the field of instructional technology by researchers today. Each week, a new professor or researcher will introduce his or her central contribution to the field.
Date: September 12, 2011 - May 2012
Technologies Used: Through out this "course" participants will use a variety of technologies, for example, blogs, Second Life, RSS Readers, UStream, etc. Course resources will be provided using gRSShopper and online seminars delivered using Elluminate.
Facilitators: Dave Cormier, George Siemens and Stephen Downes will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course. Both of these are cMOOCs. DS106 looks the more creative and still active, but I will select The Change MOOC and Udacity. Udacity because it mainly offers CS type courses.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
At an initial glance we can see the Change MOOC is classed as a cMOOC (connectivism) not least of all because of the key facilitators of this MOOC being Dave Cormier, George Siemens and Stephen Downes. All of whom are the founding fathers of the MOOC, later classified as the cMOOC. Udacity is one of the"fixed" xMOOCs (including EdX, Coursera). Both Udacity and Coursera are for profit companies. So, with The Change MOOC we have an Open free MOOC compared with a for profit, closed (although still free to students) fixed MOOC. I also chose Udacity over coursera for this comparison as I originally signed up for their CS101 course in May 2012.
Technology
The Change MOOC platform looks like Moodle although is running off Downes' gRSShopper software. The MOOC itself offers MP3 audio, Elluminate recordings (which was bought by Blackboard and renamed to Blackboard Collaborate - a Java run video, audio and workspace collaboration and discussion tool). PowerPoint attached slides, blogs, RSS feeds, Google calendar, a daily email and most likely Google Docs and they ran a backchannel. In essence the MOOC lives up to it's networking name and social participatory sharing, networking founding MOOC principle. Participants are welcomed and encouraged to make use of any technology to communicate their ideas and reflections with each other.
Udacity, created by a Stanford team, is far more restrictive, fixed, in the technology it uses or requires the student to use. It makes use of "bite-sized videos" within a closed and structured platform. I believe Udacity is currently developing a platform for others to use. Udacity offers 22 courses, mainly comp. sci related, with subtitles in "Spanish, Chinese, French, Portuguese and even less widespread languages such as Croatian.". The lack of language support did not seem a major issue or concern for the cMOOC fraternity I noticed in my literature review. The courses do not appear to be linked to any particular university, nor do the instructors. For example the instructor on the single Physics course, Andy Brown, was biking around the world before creating his Physics course. Udacity do seem to have HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey sending out their compute generated emails, which is obviously a major technological bonus. Despite almost a year without logging in to Udacity I am able to resume my Introduction to Computer Science course from where I left off.
Pedagogy
For the Change, and other cMOOCs such as this current OU MOOC the methods and practice of teaching is by total immersion into a social peer supported learning bubble. The student is free to make use of the tools of their choice (e.g. I do not make use of Twitter but prefer blogging and reading other student's blogs). I scan emailed forum posts for points of interest. cMOOCs have a supporting structure but they are both the "Wild West" and the "Party where you can wander around eating nibbles and joining groups for chats". The beginner cMOOCer must have developed Internet and IT skills and must be organized (i.e. grouping bookmarks, be adept at searching blogs and forums) etc. if they are to remain motivated within the cMOOC. The pedagogy here is one of constructivism and I would also say experimentalism. The social aspect of this MOOC is very strong, leading to clusters of likeminded people who will continue to discuss and communicate at the end of the MOOC schedule.
The xMOOC is highly structured, less flexible in Internet tool use, in fact everything required is provided in the platform, and so anything added would be optional by the student (for example copying of their work into their own blog). The advantage of the xMOOC is that one can join at any time, where as the cMOOCs seem to run for a few times then close down. One feels alone and like the single independent learner in an xMOOC (unlike the feeling of being part of a big group with the cMOOC). Udacity does it's best to offer up a Blog (but this looks structured and uninviting - sort of the nerd in the corner). They organize "Meetups" and indeed there was one in Bangkok attended by 4 people. No more seem planned. The leaning is simply this: Listen, practice, listen, practice. There are elements of building on past learning and skills, where the programming problems (for the CS intro) got more tricky and made use of previous content covered. The activity problems, program code to write, required a very good understanding of the previous material if one was to be successful. As stated in the literature, the pedagogy is standard fair and quite old. Learning to learn, not required here.
General approach and philosophy
The cMOOC (The Change MOOC) has the advantage of keeping the student engaged and participating by the use of many and varied knowledge delivery systems plus of course asking the student to create digital artifacts (products) using any tool their hearts desire. This freedom of product creation tool means that there will be participants without those tool skills who will feel inferior or lack the confidence to engage and may lurk. Although lurkers have their place to. Peer pressure and "keeping up with the Jones'" may be an issue. On the other hand, this kind of MOOC and the various means of engaging with peers allows for communication at all levels (plus I think, in general these MOOCs attract a more creative and genial crowd). I believe that the MOOC founders might be a little upset that their MOOC ideas have been hijacked by what people term the "elite" universities, who garner all the media attention (Bates was certainly unimpressed with Daphne Koller's Ted Talk). However, many people will feel more at home following a cMOOC course than an xMOOC course. I think the cMOOC philosophy matches more closely to the education for everyone (rich, poor, developed, undeveloped country) ideal than the xMOOC does. Purely because of the openness in tools in cases of restricted Internet bandwidth or government controls.
The xMOOC course appeals to my innate logical, everything sorted and structured anal personality. I know where I am, literally, with a xMOOC. My progress can almost be measured down to the nano-second. The bite sized videos tend, on the CS course anyhow, to make use of the instructor drawing sketches (known to be preferred by many - aka Kharn Academy except we see pen and hand) which then morph, as if by magic, in to MC quizzes in order to test understanding. These computer graded short quizzes combined with automatically graded bigger activities is an area not seen in the cMOOC, although there is no reason I suppose why a cMOOC could not use a tool such as Yacapaca. Eventually, as the Coursera contract states, for profit xMOOCs will, in my opinion, start charging for something. Be it certificates at the end, or selling student data to employment agencies. This potential payment and the lack of media delivery flexibility may be restrictive to poorer students with low Internet bandwidth.
Opinion
I think a person needs to be far more self-motivated in order to complete a xMOOC course, compared to a cMOOC course mainly because of the lack of functionality to "see" and share problems with others (despite the 22 minute coursera stated peer answer time). To see that others are experiencing the same problems you had. The cMOOC has a community of supportive learners who are willing to help which does not seem so apparent with the xMOOC. xMOOC content comes from the so called, best universities in the world, and although this does not necessarily mean the teaching is the best in the world, the chance to be able to access it for free is an amazing opportunity. The xMOOC will be the survivor if there is a MOOC challenge, because of the simplicity and ease of starting any course and the clean interface. By including more social learning opportunities into the xMOOC people will pay for this online course eventually. I know that if I made it to the final exam of a MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale etc. course I would certainly be willing to pay $100 or more for a certificate on passing the exam. I also believe that these certificates are going to be far more relevant to employers than say a Bath Master's degree. An applicant with evidence of having recently successfully completed a few xMOOCs on their CV outweighs the applicant who did an MA ten years back, for a whole host of reasons.
References
See here for my notes and references that have gone into the above: http://davidbrettell-h817.blogspot.com/2013/04/week-4-activity-12-learner-experience.html
No comments:
Post a Comment