Final Thoughts on MOOCs

Returning to my first post of the semester was a thought-provoking experience for me.  While I can’t say that I disagree with my definitions of MOOCs, I believe in the time of the semester both my knowledge of MOOCs and the entire MOOC phenomenon has changed in a way that my post would definitely be substantially expanded.  I still look to the future of MOOCs with guarded optimism, for both the MOOC experience and any sort of “disruption” they may cause in the education sphere.  As MOOCs continue to permeate society (hey, even my mom knows what a MOOC is now!), I still tend to believe that they may contribute to some change within education, but will not be a driving force.  However, even several months later, I think the jury is still out on that question.  MOOCs will continue to evolve, and hopefully those built with sound pedagogical principles can thrive rather than the monotonous lecture format some MOOC providers seem to embrace.  We can hope, right?

Reflecting on my personal effort, I have found this course to be both interesting and challenging in content matter and format.  I enjoyed my virtual interactions with my classmates and feel I got as much out of that as a face to face weekly course.  I did find twitter challenging for discussion, though I am becoming better at condensing my verbose nature into 140 characters.  I had not been on twitter seriously before this course, but started following a number of interesting people (beings? institutions?) related to the course and also in my general professional interests of ed tech and prospect research, so I will likely continue using twitter for keeping up with news and trends professionally.  At the beginning of the course I was excited about my impending MOOC experience, but it ended up being a bit of a dud.  The workload was too much for me with my other (for credit!) studies, and so I did not get as much out of it as I would have liked.  I do now know a number of MOOC resources, and I will continue to explore MOOCs in the future.  I thought that Dr. Major and the class had a great chemistry, and it was especially interesting to hear the thoughts of the diverse group of students.  Hopefully the instructional technology folks were not too overwhelming.
After this semester, I look forward to staying abreast on the developments surrounding MOOCs and how they shape the future of education.

MOOC Review

In my search for a MOOC to take, I was originally drawn to Big Data in Education, taught by Dr. Ryan Baker, offered by Coursera in conjunction with Columbia University.  Both professionally and academically I have been doing work with data analytics and thought this would be an excellent use of my time pursuing a MOOC class.  Unfortunately, the class kept getting pushed back.  It was originally supposed to start around the beginning of the semester, and finally had a start date of October 24.  Since I needed to get started earlier, I made other plans and enrolled in Web Intelligence and Big Data taught by Dr. Gautam Shroff also through Coursera in conjunction with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

Immediately upon exploring the course I knew it was going to be a challenge.  While I have an undergraduate minor in computer science, I was intimidated by the deep down technical nature of the course and the amount of programming knowledge involved.  The course consisted of video lectures, homework assignments, and quizzes, in the typical style of an xMOOC (Siemens, 2012).  As I began to watch the lectures, the instructor did make the complex material interesting and as easy as possible to understand.  His teaching technique helped me grasp concepts with which I was slightly familiar, but did not know in depth beforehand.   Despite the complexity of the material, the lectures were broken down in such a way that they could easily be rewatched for clarity.  No lecture segment was beyond ten minutes.  This greatly helped me fit the lectures into my already busy schedule.  Daphne Koller of Coursera (2012) details that these lengths and design are optimized for student learning.  Due to outside demands, I did not complete the programming assignments, but I did read over them.  As the course progressed, it became clear that while the material was interesting, it was really far too technical and geared towards truly “big” data (google, etc) for me to get a lot of use out of it.

A couple of weeks ago, the original course I was interested in finally started.  After much consternation rather to stick with the current course, or switch to a more relevant and less intensive course, I made the switch.  Now I am just another MOOC non-completer statistic, as taking too much time, and assuming too much knowledge are the top two reasons students don’t complete MOOCs (Coleman, 2013).  The new course has a very similar format, but the content is more relevant to my position as I will be using education specific data, rather than the huge data sets that exist in the online world.  The course is a series of video lectures, with quizzes and problems to work each week.  Since this is my second round with Coursera, I am quickly recognizing a theme!  I would imagine this is useful to learners taking multiple MOOCs as they can easily develop a routine once they are familiar with the Coursera setup.

One difference in the courses is the level of “massiveness.”  I do not have numbers of the enrollments, but the difference in the traffic on the discussion boards leads me to believe that the more general course, Web Intelligence and Big Data, has many more enrollments.  In some ways, this has been both positive and negative.  With more discussions come more student questions and interaction, however, in the first week of the course I was a bit overwhelmed.  I contributed to a thread to share your Linkedin info, and was inundated!  The thread now has 315 posts and I believe I have gotten even more connection requests.  While I do appreciate making connections and network with other learners, it was too much for me.  Since the other course, Big Data in Education, only appeals to a limited demographic, there is less traffic on the discussion boards, but it has been more mentally manageable for me personally.

In what has been a common critique of xMOOCS, both of these courses have not been especially cutting edge pedagogically speaking (Morris, 2012).  The lecture/assignment/quiz format is essentially an independent study course taken alongside thousands of others.  However, that said, I do believe they have been effective.  My foray into the Web Intelligence and Big Data course has allowed me to talk to the statistician in my office about data in different ways.  I believe the Big Data in Education course will enable me to generate new ideas in using data that is available from my institution in furthering the mission of my office and also in my studies.  While the completion rate for MOOCs is very low, I hope to stick with my second MOOC through the end.  In the future I would love to explore additional MOOCs, although I am not likely to become a “hard core learner” (Young, 2013).

Colman, D. (2013). MOOC interrupted. Top 10 reasons our readers didn’t finish a massive open online class. Retrieved from http://www.openculture.com/2013/04/10_reasons_you_didnt_complete_a_mooc.html

 

Morris, S. M. (2012). Broadcast Education: A response to Coursera. Open Education. Retrieved from http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/Journal/files/Broadcast_Education.html

 

Koller, D. (2012, June). Daphne Koller: What we're learning from online education [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html

Siemens, G. (2012). MOOCs are really a platform. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-a-platform/

 

Young, J. (2013). What Professors can learn from hard core Mooc students. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/What-Professors-Can-Learn-From/139367/

Micro MOOC survey:

Grading and MOOCs

MOOCs present a number of issues when it comes to student assessment.  While the online component adds a wrinkle to traditional grading techniques for face to face coursework, the sheer enrollment numbers of many MOOCs make even commonly used online grading techniques impossible.  A number of techniques, including peer grading, crowdsourcing, multiple choice quizzes, among others, are all being experimented with in a variety of ways in MOOC courses.  Each MOOC presents a unique challenge due to these factors, so different grading techniques may be appropriate in different situations.

In my MOOC, which centers around personal finance, the concepts and material are important, but overall this is an experience that learners will integrate into their future habits, rather than a traditional grading/testing scenario.  The MOOC includes exercises for learners to apply with their own figures and situations and also questions to ask themselves.  Depending on the direction I take, I may ask learners to share these answers with others via an online community, but discussion will not be critical, but rather open between class participants and hopefully have an encouraging nature.  I may also include questions with multiple choice answers within the coursework so that learners can be sure they grasp core concepts before moving forward.  Since there is no "grade" in the course, they will be able to answer these multiple times until correct, rather than be penalized for an incorrect answer.

My video was captured with Camtasia.  It is my favorite screen capture program, but alas, it is not free.  Its free, no frills cousin is a software called Jing, and it is a great little product!  I highly recommend Jing if you can live without the editing capabilities of Camtasia (and the cost).

In this video, I detail the first exercise in my MOOC, creating a Lifetime Income Worksheet.

MOOCs and Pedagogy

In discussions of pedagogy, I tend to be a relativist.  To answer the questions…” Does it depend upon the content? the objectives? The professor? The students?” I say all of the above.  Sometimes, I think also, the most effective way to learn may not involve a trendy technology or an en vogue model.  Reading Sean Morris’ depiction of true pedagogues blindfolding students, or having them hopscotch to stir memories to write, in contrast to pulling essays out like pulling teeth (2013) made me laugh a little inside.  In my high school there were two freshman English teachers.  One pulled essays out like teeth, the other tried lots of fluffy feel good assignments.  As a student in the former class, I loathed every minute of it.  Each class was spent grinding out essays in a ridiculously rigidly defined format and sentence structure, then critiquing our classmates’ essays.  As an adult writer I can honestly say that all writing I have produced since that course has been built upon the skills learned, and with much success.  In contrast, it became obviously apparent as we progressed into AP English and then on to college, the students in the other section were woefully unprepared to write...maybe too much hopscotch and blindfolds, and not enough actual writing?

While I may not always agree with Morris on what good pedagogy “is”, I do agree with his and Strommel’s (2013) assessment that good pedagogy is not dependent on small class size, and can occur even in MOOC environments.  We’ve all had courses with small, intimate environments where the instructor squandered the opportunity for true learning with poor teaching.  Being conscious of the content and the student motivation in the course can drive instructors to develop courses, whether they be online or offline, that truly maximize the learning experience for the student.

Despite my example to the contrary, I don’t believe that rote, behavioristic course experiences generally contribute to the most optimal learning.  Both in face to face courses, and in the MOOC environment, it is “easy” for an instructor to fall back on a good ole lecture format.  Incorporating social constructivist elements into courses allows for learners to collaborate and push the boundaries of their learning beyond what may be possible alone.  While online learning is just beginning to incorporate more constructivist elements, I believe that as the field progresses, we will learn from other’s successes and move virtual courses out of the LMS/video lecture/discussion board paradigm and begin to utilize technology in less one directional way.

With regards to my MOOC, I believe it will be a challenge to develop these types of elements into the course.  So much of my content is driven from independent study, yet I know from personal experience, that interacting with others and bouncing personal finance ideas off each other, sharing successes and failures, all leads to more commitment and increased awareness.  Overall, I hope to create a positive experience for the learner where they believe their time spent in the course was a valuable learning experience.

Micro MOOC Slideshare

Ahe602 slideshare from Jennifer Watson

Micro-MOOC Details

The micro-MOOC I am creating will be based on the personal finance book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez.  It may sound hokey, but this book set myself and my husband on a financial track ten years ago that has allowed us to achieve immense financial goals (paying off $60,000 student loan debt, paying off our house) while still living a lifestyle we enjoy that is (for the most part) in line with our values...and all that on two decent but regular salaries (no publishers clearing house or inheritances here).  To be fair though, we had been looking to move for some time and have now regained a mortgage as we struggle with the mammoth undertaking of a fixer-upper.

The book has a very straightforward format, which has also been supplemented to accompany small, in person groups.  The challenge of my micro-MOOC will be taking this format and harnessing the tools technology has to offer, while still staying true to the curriculum and provide a cohesive learning environment for learners.  Since my MOOC is not a clear skill to be learned, or a credential one can put on a resume, I envision much exploration and not necessarily an orderly or timely progression through the material.  The book set up in a series of steps which I plan to keep as the backbone of the course.  There are exercises in each step to be completed away from the course.  In addition I plan to have step by step tutorial videos to help learners complete each step.  I am also exploring collaborative elements where learners can communicate and bond with each other as they work through the program.

Below is my mind map of the first step in depth, along with steps two through four at a high level:

Rock Star Professors...and the rest of us

One issue that has recently come to the forefront in the short evolution of MOOCs is the possibility of traditional institutions using courses from MOOCs instead of using on-campus professors.  One school experimenting with this is San Jose State, which under current president Mohammed H. Qayoumi has been pushing to implement MOOC courses from edX and Udacity.  The San Jose State faculty responded to a proposal to implement an edX Philosophy course with fierce resistance, opposing what they say is a potential movement to "replace professors, dismantle departments, and provide a diminished education for students in public universities," (Kolowich, 2013).  

Will MOOCs position select professors from elite universities as "rock stars" while learning at strapped for cash public institutions is relegated to watching these instructors through MOOC video?  The US is already turning out thousands more PhD grads each year than available jobs in academia.  Will MOOCs contribute even more to an already shrinking career field?  I can only imagine what will be lost in areas of competing ideas and research should this MOOC prediction come to fruition.  However, I still am wary of both the MOOC hype and "sky is falling" predictions.  San Jose State recently suspended their partnership with Udacity after the first six months of courses brought far too high of rates of course non-completion and failure (Oremus, 2013).  The San Jose State faculty who wrote, "we believe that having a scholar teach and engage with his or her own students is far superior to having those students watch a video of another scholar engaging his or her students," in protest to the edX collaboration are likely feeling vindicated after the results of the Udacity experiment.

It is my opinion that students can learn a lot of leaders in the field, in mediums such as MOOCs, however, this cannot replace real time engagement with other students and instructors on a personal level...even if they're not "rock stars." This may be a tangential issue, but one that immediately came to mind...the long term societal effects of professors being replaced by teaching assistants.  Do we want to live in a society with only rock star professors?  While there are plenty of negative aspects to our state's expansive community college system, how would those communities be affected without the local faculty involved with both students and the local area at large?  To me, this seems to be one of the larger negative points of the potential MOOC explosion that is not yet being discussed.  

Video on Micro MOOC (of course youtube is being persnickety)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAG3FT1YBHY

What it Means to be Open

Until this week's readings, I have to admit I was fairly ignorant to the OER (open educational resources) movement.  I was aware of MIT courseware, but many of the other resources and publications are new to me.  OER materials, which include textbooks among other resources, are freely available for educational use and require attribution only (Carr, 2013).  Several private foundations have been involved in the creation of OpenStax textbooks in number of core college subjects, which are rigorously reviewed and available free digitally and at a substantially reduced print cost from traditional textbooks.

Existing MOOCs have used a number of different strategies when it comes to reading material to get content to students.  Some have content entirely contained within the course, others use OER textbooks, or traditional textbooks.  Often MOOCs too are only available within a certain timeframe within the course site.  In that respect, Carr argues that many MOOCs are not truly "open" since the content is not accessible any time, to anyone, for free. 

If MOOCs were truly about accessibility of education, it seems they would embrace the OER resources available to ensure that all students were able to participate in the learning process fully.  Call me a cynic, and I am the first to admit I am not particularity well versed in college textbook finances, but it seems highly suspect for an instructor to recommend a book in which they were the author, to a MOOC course of 100,000 students.  While they may be an expert in the field, there seems to be substantial profit motive driving that decision.  While I don't disagree with using textbooks, or with instructors profiting from the work creating a textbook, some of the true nature of MOOCs seem to be at odds with their altruistic image.

Gamechanger? MOOCs for College Credit

In the readings last week, Carlo Salerno's (2012) assertions that elite universities would become adverse to MOOCs once the proletariat began achieving mass credentialing did not sit well with me.

Salerno states, "The fact that no school uses a lottery system to determine who gets in means that determining who gets in matters a great deal to these schools, because it helps them control quality and head off the adverse effects of unqualified students either dropping out or performing poorly in career positions. For individual institutions, obtaining high quality inputs works to optimize the school’s objective function, which is maximizing prestige.
...
In this light, colleges have a strong incentive to protect, or control, the quality of the degrees that they confer because successful graduates directly affect the institution’s prestige and the public’s perceptions about the value of its products."

While I believe there are a number of issues that may make universities hesitant in allowing for course credit from MOOCs, I like to think (maybe naively) that institutions would not consider students in MOOCs who have pursued the coursework rigorously, and excelled, as potential diluters of the brand/image/prestige of the university.  That these students would somehow perform negatively in careers or reflect negatively upon the institution seems ludicrous to me.  These learners are likely to be extremely self motivated and I would imagine go on to be quite successful in their respective fields.  What struck me in this passage was that it seemed to be instead a thinly vieled argument for more class based exclusion at universities.  These MOOC students may not fit the background, color, demographics, etc, so let's keep them out.

In contrast to Salerno's assertations, I really want to be an optimist when it comes to credentialing through MOOCs.  As college continues to become more unaffordable for the average American, any opportunity for learning and receiving credit from a MOOC experience seems like an incredibly positive option for driven students who may not have the means to attend a traditional program.  The CS masters degree from Georgia Tech and Udacity seems to be the first foray of a nationally respected institution dipping its toe into the world of MOOCs for credit.  At a price of $7,000 it is nearly 90% less than the same program for an out of state student pursuing the degree on campus (Dodson, 2013). 

I am also interested to see what transpires with certain MOOCs being eligible for credit through ACE.  When reading about this, I wondered if our institution accepted ACE credit.  I did find out that ACE credit is accepted on a case by case basis, especially in the New College Life Track program.  It seems that MOOCs could easily fit in the overall scheme along with transfer credit, CLEP, AP, and other ACE prior learning. 

History of low number of students substantially using these other forms of credit, along with low completion rate of MOOCs seem to indicate that MOOCs may just become another rarely used credit option for learners, and not the disruption some predict.  The evolution of MOOCs into true degree programs such as the GA Tech offering, may change the landscape.  Only time will tell.

Show MOOCs the Money

As the potential impact of MOOCs looms on the higher education horizon, many of those unanswered questions surround the financial aspects of MOOCs.  First off, how can MOOCs continue operating as a free model?  MOOCs are costly to maintain, and major players in the MOOC arena such as Udacity and Coursera have $22 million and $16 million in funding from venture capital respectively (Holmes, 2013).  Venture capitalists aren’t involved with MOOCs as an altruistic venture.  They expect a return on their money.  Dellarocas and Van Alstyne (2013) present a number of possibilities for the profitability of MOOCs, including state subsidies, moving to a tuition model, paying for certifications from courses, selling data generated in courses, charging potential employers for recruiting services, and selling student referral data to higher education institutions.  I believe that a combination of these business models must emerge if the for profit companies driving many MOOCs are to stay afloat.  Personally, I wonder if these avenues will be enough to maintain MOOCs as a profitable enterprise, but that remains to be seen.  I am also generally concerned with the issue the transparency.  The public image of MOOCs as benevolent, knowledge dispursing entities greatly contrasts with the true nature of for profit enterprises in general.  Are learners aware that many MOOCs are in existence to make money?  In addition, have/will MOOCs be completely transparent about the possibility of using learners data for profit in a plethora of ways?

Another financial element surrounding the impact of MOOCs stems from the other end of the spectrum.  Will MOOCs influence the financial model of traditional higher education institutions? Clay Shirky (2013) details a higher education system which is already struggling with economic issues of keeping expenses below revenues, and students facing difficult decisions of sacrificing ever increasing expenses, in return for a bachelor’s degree with less net benefit than in the past.  In this environment, the advent of MOOCs is likely to affect small, less prestigious colleges already having difficulty keeping revenues and expenses in check.  Glassman (2013) citing a Moody’s Investor Service report, agrees.  Moody’s predicts that MOOCs will be a net positive for large schools with brand recognition, but will hurt smaller colleges who cannot compete against those course and faculty offerings.  While I am not sure that MOOCs will have a large effect on the overall higher education landscape, I do agree that online learning and nontraditional course offerings will.  Not staying abreast of these changes and opportunities will be extremely detrimental in today’s already shaky funding environment. 

Dellarocas, C., & Van Alstyne, M. (2013). Money models for MOOCs. Communications of the ACM, 56(8), 25-28.

Grossman, S. (2013). Moody’s Says MOOCs Could Raise a University’s Credit Rating [Blog Post] The Chronicle of Higher Education College, Wired Campus.  Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/moodys-says-moocs-could-boost-a-universitys-credit-rating/44519

Holmes, D. (2013) How Will the MOOCs Make Money? Retrieved from http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/22/infographic-how-will-the-moocs-make-money/

Shirky, C. (2013). MOOCs and Economic Reality [Blog Post] The Chronicle of Higher Education College, The Conversation.  Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/07/08/moocs-and-economic-reality/

MOOCs and Related Kerfuffle

First off, I have to admit I was completely averse to using the word disruption in my title, so I chose the most colorful synonym in the list.  I'm going to try to incorporate kerfuffle into my daily speech now.

Disruption is certainly the word du jour in the current higher education landscape and MOOCs are right in the middle of the discussion.  When I think of disruptive innovation, technologies come to mind that transformed an industry, completely replacing what had been there before.  While I believe there is potential for MOOCs to contribute to a change from the current higher education system we have today, I expect them to be only a small force in overall changes.  When I think of true "disruption" I think more along the lines of Wikipedia and Encylopedia Britannica, which ended print production in 2012. 

However, I also feel that MOOCs are so new, talk of major disruption may be valid, as it appears no one really has a handle on just what will be of the whole MOOC phenomenon yet.  Stewart (2013) appears to share this sentiment in a post-year of the MOOC article detailing the evolution of the MOOC discussion and MOOCs in general during the recent past.  Because no one knows exactly what MOOCs are and will be, even discussing them is difficult.  I love how the saying, wherever you go, there you are, is sprinkled in several places.  We are truly in the middle of a MOOC journey, and there are a lot of talking head pundit types making various preditions.  Peter J. Stokes, quoted in Carlson & Blumenstyk (2012) likens what is transpiring with MOOCs to people throwing spaghetti to a wall and seeing what sticks.  Will MOOCs be a game changer, or will they be along the lines of the radio broadcasts of early last century?  Right now I think it is still anyone's guess!

References

Stewart, B. (2013). the MOOC is dead, long live the MOOC. Retrieved from http://theory.cribchronicles.com/2013/01/04/the-mooc-is-dead-long-live-the-mooc/

Carlson, S., & Blumenstyk, G. (2012). For whom is college being reinvented?. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Battle Lines Drawn? cMOOCs and xMOOCs

In MOOCs’ relatively short five year history, two distinct types of MOOCs have developed, cMOOCs and xMOOCs.  While both types of MOOCs adhere to the concept of a massive open online course, the pedagogy and learning theory driving the course create a completely different learner experience.  George Seimens (2012), one of the developers of the connectivist theory from which the c in cMOOCs is derived, illustrates the core of this difference in the statement, “cMOOCs focus on knowledge creation and generation whereas xMOOCs focus on knowledge duplication.”

xMOOCs are the courses that have been getting much media buzz, including those offered from Coursera, Udacity, and EDx.  These courses are adapted from traditional college courses, relying on methods such as video lectures, quizzes, and tests to gauge learning (Siemens, 2012).  They are often taught by leaders in a field, and contained within a learning management system.  This format, with lack of collaboration and integration among students with one another and instructors, begets the overarching criticism of these courses, (Siemens, 2012;  Morris, 2012).  In contrast to the portrayal of xMOOCs as “drill and grill” instruction, Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller (2012), details a number of innovations in online learning actively being used at Coursera, including interactive videos which require learner participation, study groups, peer grading, and learner collaboration in a message board where questions were answered and help provided nearly any hour of the day due to the worldwide student base. 

While xMOOCs may be making strides in areas of collaboration, it is the underlying theory of learning that fundamentally separates them from cMOOCs.  The cMOOC model springs from the ideas of connectivism, that learning happens through connections.  They emphasize “creation, creativity, autonomy, and social networked learning,” (Siemens, 2012).  In these courses, there is much less of a power differential between instructor and learner, focusing on co-learning instead.  The learners engage with one another, often in real time through various social media.  The courses are not self contained within an LMS.  The concept of a cMOOC is brought to life in this video, albeit a little hard to understand, Visualizing a cMOOC.

 

While I am only beginning to participate in an xMOOC, I am intrigued by the concept of the cMOOC and the completely different approach to learning.  In the future I would like to explore a cMOOC course to compare and contrast the styles.  So far, two weeks into my Coursera course, I am finding the format of short videos and quizzes to be both interesting (where I have made enough meaning from my new knowledge to chatter about ideas to coworkers), and conducive to my schedule.  The “c” in the cMOOC actually scares me a little!  I have made one post on the Coursera message board and been inundated with updates and emails.  I’m not sure I am prepared to collaborate in real time with thousands of people.

References

Morris, S. M. (2012). Broadcast Education: A response to Coursera. Open Education. Retrieved from http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/Journal/files/Broadcast_Education.html

Siemens, G. (2012). MOOCs are really a platform. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-a-platform/

Koller, D. (2012, June). Daphne Koller: What we're learning from online education [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html

What is a MOOC?

I'm glad I procrastinated to write this post, since just two days ago the Oxford Dictionary released new word additions for this year.  Included was term MOOC, which the dictionary describes as "a course of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people."  While that definition sums up the concept of a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) adequately for on a one line entry for a dictionary, there is much more to be included.

MOOCs are a relatively new phenomenon in education, with the first course appearing in 2008.  They are online courses, open to anyone, at generally no cost.  MOOCs are available in a number of subject areas and from both for profit and nonprofit providers.  Jeff Dunn (2012) links to a concise info-graphic that details the short and rapidly evolving history of MOOCs.  As evidenced by skyrocketing enrollment, MOOCs may have a major effect on the higher education landscape.

Since MOOCs are such a recent trend, many scholars are making predictions regarding their force as a major disruption in higher education.  How MOOCs will impact traditional education remains to be seen, however, one can not ignore the large enrollments and learning opportunities they are generating.  As they continue to grow, determining where they fit into the higher education landscape will be a large challenge for traditional universities.

One of the most interesting questions to me personally is the business model used by the partnerships between traditional Universities and for-profit MOOC providers such as Coursera and Udacity.  I am just beginning to read about this, but the  ethical questions surrounding student data usage and strategic enrollment management posed by Dettman (2013) bring up additional issues in the MOOC discussion beyond the usual online learning debate.

In deciding which MOOC to take, I was a bit overwhelmed with the available options.  I'm one of those nerdy folks who gets excited at the idea of taking interesting courses, for free no less.  Practicality prevailed and I decided to take a course that would generally be useful in my course of study and/or my work life.  I initially chose Big Data in Education offered through Coursera.  It seemed like a good overview of material that would be really useful as we potentially move into using "big data" into some data mining models.  However, the course, which was supposed to start in August, was postponed...twice.  I switched over to another Coursera class, Web Intelligence and Big Data.  This course seems much more technical, as it includes programming assignments.  While I consider myself fairly technically astute, I haven't done much in the past 10 years beyond writing simple SQL statements and the occasional HTML tag, and I have never programmed in Python.  It is a little intimidating, but I am ready to dust off the depths of my brain that know about concepts like binary trees (in the first lesson, apparently).

Refrences

Dunn, J. (2012, December 24). a quick guide to the history of moocs. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/2012/12/a-quick-guide-to-the-history-of-moocs/
Dettman J. (2013, June 7).  MOOCs and the Masses: Big Data and the Question of Access in Online Teaching. Retrieved from http://www.jonathandettman.net/moocs-and-the-masses-big-data-and-the-question-of-access-in-online-teaching

Introduction

Hello classmates (and other folks who many stumble upon this site),

Welcome to my blog for the course AHE 602 - Special Topics in Higher Education, MOOCs.  Throughout the fall 2013 semester I will keep this blog updated on a regular basis with thoughts and opinions from the coursework each week.  While my only experience in the realm of MOOCs at this point is the non-completion of a MOOCs class, I hope to broadly expand my knowledge base and practical experience involving MOOCs this semester.

About Me:
I am currently in the doctoral program for Instructional Leadership with a concentration in Instructional Technology.  I have a hodgepodge educational and professional background.  My BS is in Management Information Systems, and I also have a MA in Community Counseling.  For a couple of years I worked in IT project management for a major bank, and then came back "home" to UA.  For seven years I worked in CCS, managing data for the department of Academic Outreach.  Last year I accepted a position as the Assistant Director of Research and Biographical Records in Advancement Services.

Personally, I'm huge animal lover and have three dogs and two cats.  I also have a husband, Andrew, who some of you may know as he also works on campus.  Coinciding with this semester is our attempt to renovate/remodel a house we recently purchased (and hope to move into before Christmas).  My chronicles of this will likely invade my twitter feed as I am also trying to blog that experience.

I look forward to learning more about MOOCs and also interacting with all of my classmates this semester. See you all soon!