Downes and Siemens – MOOCs

[AliSheph]

I picked this one, as I thought it related to what ALT are trying to do on ocTEL.  A few things came to mind, in no particular order:

(1) This model depends on engaged, mature (not in age, but in outlook) and self-motivated learners.  I’d suggest the learners need to have highly developed and successful online study and general study strategies to succeed here (especially organisational skills)- so it might be more appropriate for some cohorts and situations than others (e.g. I think it would work for me and fellow students on the Open University MA in Online and Distance Education, as we’re self-selecting!)

(2) I think the approach as described would alienate some learners.  Perhaps more than a traditional approach alienates, as the mature, self-directed learner can always stretch round the traditional approach, whereas the learner alienated by the distributed learning approach would drop off

(3) What about students who don’t want to  make their comments public – i.e. want them inside an institutional VLE – a ‘safe space’.  In many cultures, losing face is a problem, so I can’t see students from these cultures being particularly keen to blog or tweet and have that content potentially exposed to a wide audience.  Are MOOCs biased towards a western cultural learning model?  [Don’t know, just a thought]

(4) Some students may be happy to make transient contacts just for their course, and then keep in touch under their own steam as it will help with their studies, and then move on – I guess choice is good here, though. I thought he was being harsh by saying universities sever the contacts – I think another way of looking at it is that universities don’t impose continued contact on their students after finishing a module/graduating!  However, many have active alumni networks that will support ongoing contacts and collaborations if this is something a student wants

(5) It’s telling that Siemens admits they haven’t thought about economics and impact on faculty members – to some extent, many HE faculty already teach globally, but some bigger questions about where you call home and who pays…after all, a collegiate community (virtual and offline) may be the ideal working environment for (at least some) academics.  However, such ‘blue sky thinking’ is needed to shift the paradigm…

(6) Siemens made a brief comment about scaling, which seems inconsistent with Diana Laurillard’s presentation on last week’s webinar

 

 

 

[imogenbertin]

I really like your point about VLEs and safe spaces. In 2011-2012 I used eportfolios with a small group starting in the first semester with entirely private reflections on the VLE that only the learner and tutor viewed, plus a few collaboration tasks (small groups tackling different topics to create a small wiki for  example).

 

In semester 2 they had to create public eportfolios. I found despite being mature learners studying a topic that implies public posts (digital marketing) there was a lot of resistance to “going public”. But equally they hated the clunkiness of the VLE interface (Blackboard campus pack) which pushed them towards using eg WordPress for their public portfolios. It took a lot of work to get them going and if it had not been a summative assessment to complete the eportfolio, then I think only about one-fifth would have completed. I don’t think that level of encouragement to complete is scalable for MOOCs.

 

So then do we just accept the massive dropout rate for MOOCs? I still think that by improving basic navigation and ‘signposting’, completion can probably be improved a lot. But I also worry that, as you mention, whole swathes of learners are excluded, or experience MOOCs as a “failure”.

[philtubman]

I have been thinking about the collaboration that occurs online and how this differs from the physical situation.

Certainly here on octel I have been reading discussions and replying where i can, but the discussion topics (for now at least) are rather impersonal which makes you feel ‘separate’ from the others, and more aware of your own mistakes. I find this page from Moodle philosophy which describes the separate and connected-ness of online discussion forums: http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Philosophy#Connected_and_separate

The problem I see is that on MOOCs which have HUGE discussions, between strangers, it is hard to move beyond the separate towards the ‘connected’ state. I think the ‘socialisation’ phase of Salmons 5 step plan is there to shepherd participants towards a social way of working together, and comments like this show how important it is to enable real discussion, rather than pasting of my ideas and there you go attitude to larger discussion groups.

This problem is partly solved on a ‘blended’ model of delivery as the students see each other and have f2f contact as well to support the socialisation which is necessary for quality connected online learning.

Perhaps the solution is to forget that we are all strangers and act as though we are all friends on facebook chatting away, but its a hard mould to break when your thoughts are public and your profile is linked to you directly as a professional. What I have learned so far from ocTEL MOOC is how to blog – this is partly a psychological effort to publish openly, but i hope my musings (even if they are wrong) are better for being open.

🙂

[philtubman]

ps imogen,

So then do we just accept the massive dropout rate for MOOCs? I still think that by improving basic navigation and ‘signposting’, completion can probably be improved a lot.

 

I think we need to qualify what ‘completion’ means in a MOOC like this one. Certainly in an EdX or Coursera (x)MOOC, completion refers to watching all the videos and completing all the assignments – which is pretty standard and like any classroom progamme.

These types of cMOOC are a bit different, as participants find their own way and the materials are just there as a starting point. Co-creation of course materials is partly what this cMOOC is about, which makes ‘completion’ a slightly harder concept to grasp.

Does this make the value of any participation in these experiences also harder to grasp?

[Joseph Gliddon]

“act as though we are all friends”

I like that Phil, and you have recently become one of my Google+ friends (even though we have never met).  On the #EDCMooc one of the participants coined the phrase “Fraingers” which I think kind of sums it up.

I also think the blogging is a key part of the learning here (Ive found a lot of my learning is done when I try to put it in sensible order on my blog).  What I feel about the mooc’s is that people need a certain level of confidence to benefit from them.

Here is my video on Flipped Class Vs Mooc http://youtu.be/yvEo0Tq0i4k (2.30 mins) I chose Flipped because I dont think Moocs are for everyone

[Jilly]

Some really interesting points here!

The first thought I had when watching the clips was that the design seemed slightly chaotic and definitely idealistic – underpinning the course design was the assumption that learners would actively seek out the best ways to interact and collaboratively form knowledge. This seems a somewhat technological determinist approach: in that having access to different social media is assumed to be all that is needed for students to open up and engage with the content, and particularly with one another.

Whilst this model clearly offers potential for already confident users of technology (and confident communicators!) to explore new platforms for collaboration, I sincerely doubt it would work with students who were either not self-selecting, or who fell short of the high level of digital literacy that this approach to collaboration hangs upon. As Joe and Phil both mention, the ability to interact as ‘fraingers’ is a specific skill in itself.

I compared this example to Mitra’s e-learning ‘ecosystem’ approach. I was particularly interested by the fact that both of these examples shared the same objective, of promoting collaborative learning, but that their audiences and methods were so different. In contrast to the MOOC example, Mitra’s ‘ecosystem’ retained more scaffolding around student interactions, and this was integral to its success: as Mitra indicated in his speech, screen size was key to promoting effective in-group discussion and orderly interactions between groups.

I found the latter example easier to follow, not least because the process was so much more structured – unsurprising, given it targeted ten year olds rather than teaching professionals!  But for me this comparison highlighted a feeling I tend to get with MOOCs, that we are in some ways running before we can walk, and trying exciting new forms of collaboration that are really only effective for a select group of people at present. Perhaps use of Mitra’s learning ‘ecosystems’ in primary schooling might help to build in the next generation of learners the skills needed for effective MOOC participation?

[ejarmstrong]

I agree with AliSheph – the MOOC model seems only suited to a very particular type of learner – motivated, confident& especially organised – one of the problems with this ‘open-ended’ approach to learning is it can put a lot of pressure on time management skills and create constant expectation that one should be ‘doing more’ which I could see being very difficult for some learners to manage.

If MOOCs become more widely adopted (and there’s a lot of talk about them in the UK Futher Education sector at the moment), there’s the risk that they become seen as a quick/cheap ‘one size fits all’ solution and they actually end up putting a lot of people off online learning because it was not the right sort of learning for them. For our students, building up their study skills and confidence can be as important as teaching the subject.

I think it is Gilly Salmon who talks about the importance of ‘lurking’ in online learning to develop one’s confidence and that seems difficult in a MOOC – just knowing where to lurk for a start …

It may be a sad fact, but for many of our learners, assessment is a key motivator  – not just to demonstrate to others what they have learnt but also to themselves – and for many MOOCs it seems to be more ‘the taking part that counts’.

 

I’m going off to look at the Mitre video yet – from what Jilly says I think it might feel more relevant to me

[Diane Hockridge]

I agree with Jilly that with MOOCs it does seem as if we are running before we can walk.  There are a lot of aspects of MOOCs that haven’t been worked out yet.  It does seem to me that MOOCs may have more potential for informal learning contexts than formal ones.

Another aspect of MOOCs that I find somewhat inconsistent and unsettling is that while one of the stated purposes of MOOCs is to provide open learning experiences, MOOCs seem to exclude many people.  As others have pointed out, you need a certain degree of self-confidence, digital and social networking literacy, plenty of internal motivation, and I think a degree of extroversion to be able to manage and benefit from participating in a MOOC.  One of the key issues for many people seems to be the sense of getting lost in the enormity and complexity of a MOOC – as ejarmstrong says – not even knowing where to lurk!

Having said that, I do think that there is something in the basic concept behind Siemens and Downes approach which explores the potentialities of using the internet for connection and learning.  But my preference is for a little more structure.

[jrconlon95]

Hi Phil

Thanks for the link. I have also been pondering participation, engagement and community.  How to do this digitally without also feeling bombarded? Or like a ‘show and tell’ session. Mmmmm. I have also struggled to keep contact with those I have started ‘conversations’ with too.  It feels like finding the end of a ball of wool – not a natural conversation. So this doesn’t add anything to your thoughts other than to confirm them from my experience.  I think the blog is also my big take-away too – couldn’t find your blog link though to take a peek.

Jo

[jrconlon95]

Hi Joseph

Thanks for the clip.  I would also choose flipped.  I think you make a very interesting point about short term / long term. So who knows in the long term.  The phrase ‘overwhelmed by the noise’ for activity level in a MOOC seems to sum up a lot of the sentiment as we start the course.   The clip is a good way of getting to know our new franger too – not sure I’m brave enough yet but appreciated remembering what a sunny day looked like.

Jo

[Stuart Allan]

“Think as a global participant … the knowledge you need to learn a complex subject is not going to be contained in one individual or institution. It’s going to be distributed.”

This kind of sums up my main reservation about MOOCs at the moment. In the interview George Siemens seems to view learning as an endlessly social experience, where no one individual has all of the answers and learning content is merely ‘a conduit for connections’.

If that’s the case, why would students bother with educators? Couldn’t they just look at a list of aggregated bookmarks or search for themselves? Isn’t it the job of educational institutions to curate and present information that’s reliable and authoritative, rather than just being a conduit to infinite connections? (As one contributor to the week 0 webinar commented, ‘Are MOOCs just bad elearning?’)

And what about assessment? In my own experience (in HE), students aren’t just learning for learning’s sake; they’re learning so that they come out with a level of proficiency that they can demonstrate to their boss. (Inevitably, that means passing an exam or submitting an assessment.) As mid-career professionals, they certainly don’t have the time to network endlessly or chase down information that might not be on the exam.

I must look into a different TEL approach next week – this is turning into a MOOC about MOOCs!

[Leonie]

So many great points on this thread, thank you.

I am possibly repeating things that have already been said better, but I think the technology here is essentially facilitating many-2-many communication across time & place, so good at supporting diverse communities of learning/practice.

Based on the questions I was thinking about… (http://octel.alt.ac.uk/forums/topic/my-thoughts-about-the-5-cases/)

The positives are:

– MOOCs provide lots of opportunities to for learners to articulate their ideas, with the potential for feedback from others, or even engaging in debates, with the benefits already mentioned on this thread: http://octel.alt.ac.uk/forums/topic/eric-mazur/ I do wonder how much sustained critical discussion actually happens though, or if people tend to just add their own perspective or look for ways to agree with each other.

– Even for lurkers, repeated exposure to ideas via reading different people’s articulations may be helpful

– Blogging & other written asynchronous communication encourages reflection

The negatives are:

– Motivation: (1) AliSteph & Diane Hockridge & others above have described all the qualities learners need to have to ‘succeed’ in a mooc. So there’s a barrier to anyone without strong motivation based on confidence in own ideas plus study skills & tech skills & self-discipline – easy to feel overwhelmed by amount of material & different tools to access. (2) Some people find online interactions less motivating than face-to-face interaction as Phil Tubman explains above.

-It can be hard to find relevant material to focus on with so many contributions, but social tech tools can help in the selection of relevant info, e.g. popularity of blogs, retweets.

I agree with Stuart Allen that education is about providing a structured learning experience – ideally an educator uses their greater knowledge to select important learning material/activities for students. Even self-directed learners may find it hard to make ideal choices when they know nothing about a field.

Unlike Stuart, this made me think maybe MOOCs are better suited to intermediate learning rather than introductory learning. I think I’d get more out of a MOOC if I have enough knowledge of the field to have some ideas about what I’d like to learn, and some basic familiarity with the jargon used & principles/approaches in that community.

[AngelaSmith]

The points raised in Leonie’s posting and touched on by others are ones  I share but for particular learners in specific situations. Much as I find Siemens’ comments engaging, I , too, have grave doubts whether this dependency on the ability of students to manage their learning through social mediation alone will match the needs and expectations as well as the abilities of many current and potential students. There seems to be an argument against the institution having any form of ‘walled garden’  but it isn’t just about students using ‘content as a conduit to communication’. We also need to think about the level of maturity of the audience, IT skills and indeed, the desire to adopt social networking, or not, as a key means of knowledge creation and sharing.The additional support mechanisms applied in Mitra’s work offers middle ground which may enhance the learning of less confident learners.

[CharlotteAbbott]

The reference to mature learners in Angela’s post is relevant for the majority of online learners in my own institution and therefore raises questions regarding the appropriacy of Siemens’ model. Our assumptions regarding mature learners include that they are happy to adopt the use of social media for learning. Depending on the discipline, the level of appropriacy of a MOOC type course varies. For example online learners in health or leisure related courses are more open to unstructured, self directed learning approaches than are law or business students, for whom Mitra’s more controlled approach might be more suitable.

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