In week one of the oCTEL course, we’ve been asked to look at a couple of examples of learning methods and comment on them and decide which one you think is more powerful and relevant for you.
First I selected the interview of George Siemens, talking about massive open online courses (MOOCs). Along with Stephen Downes, George developed really the current idea for MOOCs, only a couple of years ago. The MOOC concept stemmed from an idea of running conference material in the form of a course, delivered over the web. It followed earlier developments in social learning with the forming of Open Educational Resources, alongside a movement of social/democratic movements for education and an evolving pedagogy of rhizomatic education.
Since the first MOOCs were initially run, much has quickly developed, with a whole range of different courses now being hosted, by various platforms and providers. Using the word ‘massive’ and ‘open’ can easily be challenged, as what determines a ‘massive’ course. Similarly, what does one mean by open. Certainly platform providers such as Coursera can be criticised in that they select which courses they are willing to host – thus filtering what learning potential is available.
I see MOOCs as been powerful in that they provide a potential opportunity for learning that is free at the point of use, to hundreds of thousands of people across the world, at any time. MOOCs have had in excess of 150,000 students taking them, all for free, as part of a single course. Wow – that is a lot of learning taking place. Accepting that drop out rates can be high, that is still a lot of possible learning. Of course, people signing up to MOOCs might not really be engaging fully with all the study materials – but if they are engaging in some way, then they are learning in some way. Who decides what and who and when should be learnt, is a great break away for MOOCs, from traditionally fixed, linear pedagogies, with fixed learning outcomes. MOOCS give greater power and control and autonomy to the learner. For example, it is completely up to me, as a course participant, how much I engage with this oCTEL MOOC and who I decide to engage with through the provided Forum boards, and what links and how I try and develop.
This chaotic way of learning, whilst embedded within a framework, is something new for me to get used to, having spent many years as a student, and now as a lecturer, taking and designing rather rigid, linear courses.
And this contrasts very much with the use of some form of a virtual reality or serious game developed by Helen Keegan. Of course it was welcoming to see a northern speaker and academic featuring in this course, and someone I hadn’t heard of before. But the teaching methods and approach had a very powerful effect on me in that (a) I don’t really understand what was actually done and (b) I felt very unnerved, as was anticipated for the students on her course, to some extent, by the material and delivery methods AND by what appeared to be an experiment on students without their consent. The latter point had to be taken seriously after the project had started as some students seemed to be at least posting signs of psychological distress. But I admire Helen’s work for trying to develop curiosity for learning among her students – which was what the project was designed to do. Year on year, I find that students have less of an enquiring mind, and expect more and more instruction. This is not only frustrating but is sad, especially as access to the virtual world has brought tremendous learning opportunities for those with some initial curiosity at least.
So in a way, both the MOOCs and the use of some form of augmented reality, I find, appealing for learning opportunities. MOOCS allow social learning, and personal learning and networking communities to be naturally developed and games or augmented reality can help students embrace and deploy their innate desire for curiosity, so often squashed by externally imposed, and probably often needless tick boxes and procedures.
The thought of trying to introduce any augmented reality onto the course I teach on sees light years away – opening people up to the possibilities and advantages of OERs, and social learning environments needs to be tackled first.
I am interested to find out what others thought about these examples.
Roger
Hi, I'm a senior lecturer in public health, at the University of Manchester. For seven years I have been course unit leader on a fully online distance learning programme in public health/primary care. I've been designing & running course units for this, using Blackboard now. I work with other lecturers alongside a e-learning team. Having students all over the world helps give an interesting perspective to the teaching of public health and to using online learning. I am keen to learn more about pedagogical principles and development for technology enhanced learning, and how to maximise the student learning experience. More recently I have become involved in developing proposals and hopefully design and running of a MOOC. I am also interested in exploring greater use of OERs for public health and would like to pursue my research interest/hypothesis I am calling "Just In Time Learning". But with a PhD already alongside other things, my friends are trying to keep me away from more studying. I am a convert for free-education across the world, which is frustrating at times working in a university which clearly needs to bring in income too. But massive shifts have taken place with Web 2 and democratic education movements. I would like to find out if there is a local network / northern network for TEHL in higher education, and if not, perhaps we could start one.