Why spend time on online education? Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, disruptive innovation and higher education. How Online Education Is Changing the Way We Learn [INFOGRAPHIC] Over the past decade or so, the Internet has become a huge source of information and education, especially for those who might be short on time, money or other resources. And it's not just crowdsourced data collections like Wikipedia or single-topic blogs that encourage individual learning; huge corporations and nonprofits are making online education and virtual classrooms a very formal affair these days. From the first online classes (which were conducted by the University of Phoenix in 1989) to the present day, when online education is a $34 billion industry, more and more students are finding new life and career education opportunities online.
Check out this infographic from OnlineEducation.net about how the world of online learning has changed and grown over the years. Click image to see larger version. [source: Online Education] Top image based on a photograph from iStockphoto user flyingdouglas. CourseMatch | Course Redesign with Technology | CSU. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) What Is a MOOC? A massive open online course (MOOC) is a model for delivering learning content online to any person who wants to take a course, with no limit on attendance.
This updated ELI 7 Things You Should Know About MOOCs II (June 2013) provides additional key facts about MOOCs. A short video about MOOCs and the connected age. MOOC Resources How Students Engage with a Remedial English Writing MOOC: A Case Study in Learning Analytics with Big Data, ELI Brief, March 2015. Could a MOOC be designed to serve remedial students without strong study skills and habits?
Crafting an Effective Writer: Tools for the Trade (CEW) was designed to create a noncredit option for remedial students to help build their skills before they enter college and thus reduce the remedial instruction needed. Previous Events EDUCAUSE Sprint 2013, July 30–August 1. Looking for more sessions on MOOCs? MOOCs of Interest Current/Future State of Higher Education 2012. MOOC Providers.
MOOCs could be disastrous for students and professors. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The word mooc sounds a bit like slang from Goodfellas or the affectionate shortening of the already-affectionate name of a former outfielder for the New York Mets. In fact, a MOOC is a new kind of college-like experience that seems to possess the magical power to turn some of the smartest people in academia into followers of a faith-based cult because they want to become its idols.
MOOC stands for “massive open online course.” The term was coined by a group of Canadian academics in 2008 to represent a recently invented type of online class that depends upon small group interactions for most of the instruction. More recently, three instructors in the Stanford University computer science department appropriated that term to start two separate private education companies, Udacity and Coursera.
How do you teach tens of thousands of people anything at once? You don't. A Massively Bad Idea – On Hiring. According to a recent article in The Chronicle, a state senator in California has sponsored a bill that would establish “a statewide platform through which students who have trouble getting into certain low-level, high-demand classes could take approved online courses offered by providers outside the state’s higher-education system.” In other words, students at California’s public colleges who are unable to enroll in regular classes due to overcrowding will instead be steered into MOOCs, or massive open online courses.
That strikes me as a massively bad idea. Admittedly, I’m an outsider. I don’t live in California, and I’ve never worked in that state’s higher-education system. Maybe I just don’t understand what’s going on. Apparently nobody else does, either. Lacking such “details,” let’s stick with what we do know. We know that community-college students, practically by definition, are some of the students least prepared for college work. Look, I’m not a politician or an economist. Your next debate.