MOOCs






 * “Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.” (Kofi Annan; Ghanaian diplomat, seventh secretary-general of the United Nations, winner of 2001 Nobel Peace Prize; 1938-.)

Introduction
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a major addition to our educational system. They are a powerful change agent. Click here for general background information about MOOCs.

Information Age Education has published a number of articles about MOOCs. This IAE-pedia Page contains brief summaries of and links to some those articles, as well as links to and brief information about some ongoing research, development, and implementation of MOOCs.

Brief History of MOOCs
Moursund, D. (5/23/2014). Harvard in Investing Heavily in MOOCs. IAE Blog. Retrieved 10/9/2014 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/entry/harvard-is-investing-heavily-in-moocs.html.

Quoting from this article:


 * The history of online courses is relatively long. The roots lie in correspondence courses, which began about 300 years ago.


 * The history of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is quite short. On 8/2/2011, I posted an Information Age Education Blog entry that began with:


 * Stanford University is going to make its regular Introduction to AI course available free on the Web this fall (2011). The course regularly enrolls nearly 200 students. Students taking the free online version of the course can turn in lessons that will be graded and can take the tests. They can receive a certificate indicating their level of performance in the course relative to the regularly enrolled students.
 * This course had an enrollment of about 160,000 students. I added a Retrospective Comment to the IAE Blog entry on 12/19/2011.
 * …this coming Spring MIT will offer its first free online course in which a student can do the assignments and receive a Certificate indicating that they have successfully taken the course.
 * MOOCs have traveled a bumpy road. A 12/31/2013, National Public Radio report summarized difficulties encountered up through the end of 2013. Substantial research and production investments are being made to improve the quality of these courses.
 * My recent Google search of MOOC produced over 2.7 million hits! For a happening in education, that number sounds like “going viral.” Click here for an extensive worldwide list of upcoming MOOCs. Also see 985 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.

Articles That May Interest You
Kamenetz, A. (4/11/2015). New research shows free online courses don't grow as expected. NPR Ed. Retried 4/13/2015 from http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/04/11/397295495/the-future-of-free-online-courses-new-research-from-mit-and-harvard.

Quoting from the article:


 * Just a few years ago, the Massive Open Online Course was expected to reinvent higher education. Millions of people were signing up to watch Web-based, video lectures from the world's great universities. Some were completing real assignments, earning certificates and forming virtual study groups — all for free.




 * One of the biggest MOOC platforms, edX, is run jointly as a nonprofit by Harvard and MIT. And researchers at both schools have been poring over the data from everyone who participated in 68 courses over more than two years. That's 10 million participant-hours. [Bold added fro emphasis.]


 * In one survey of a subset of users, 39 percent identified as current or former teachers, and one-in-five had taught the subject they were studying. This finding supports the general profile of MOOCsters as being already well-educated.[Bold added fro emphasis.]

Marshall, E. (10/6/2014). edX turns attention to high school MOOCs. eSchool News. Retrieved 10/9/2014 from http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/10/06/high-school-moocs-839/2/.

Quoting from this article:


 * Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, said that because “nearly 150,000 edX learners are high school students. [Developing] courses to specifically meet the needs of this student population is a high priority for us.”




 * Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of American Association of School Administrators (AASA), the School Superintendents Association, said MOOCs are not yet at the point where high schools will be offering full credit for their completion.


 * For that to happen, Domenech said, MOOCs will have to address a number of key issues. For instance, the courses will have to earn the endorsement of a nationally recognized accrediting agency. Also, most states still require students to be taught by a teacher who is certified in that state.

Anderson, N. (9/23/2014). MIT study finds learning gains for students who took free online course. The Washington Post. Retrieved 10/9/2014 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/mit-report-finds-learning-gains-for-students-who-took-free-online-course/2014/09/23/7ceb34e6-4330-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html.

Quoting from the article:


 * Students in a free online physics course from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrated roughly equal learning gains if they stuck with the class, regardless of previous academic experience, researchers reported Tuesday.


 * Their progress also was comparable to what some MIT students showed when they were required to take the introductory course on campus as a remedial measure.


 * The findings offer evidence that “massive open online courses,” or MOOCs, can be an effective way to teach a broad range of people from around the world who want to learn from top-flight universities without paying tuition.

See more details about this research in Learning in an Introductory Physics MOOC.

Some MOOC-related IAE Blog Entries Published by IAE
There are arrange chronologically by date of publication, with the most recently published one first. All can be accessed at http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog.html. This list was produced by use of the Search feature, searching the Blog using the term MOOC.

1. 					 												 						Three Simple Ideas about Computers in the Curriculum ... from http://iae-pedia.org/Two_Brains_Are_Better_Than_One. Moursund, D. (12/30/2015). MOOC enrollment continues to grow. IAE Blog. Retrieved 3/31/2016 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/entry/mooc-enrollment-continues-to-grow.html. ...

01 April 2016

2. 					 												 						Information Underload and Overload ... g_Us. Moursund, D. (10/26/2015). Nearly 4,000 MOOCS. IAE Blog. Retrieved 2/29/2016 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/entry/nearly-4-000-moocs.html. Moursund, D. (10/22/2015). Openly licensed educational reso ...

01 March 2016

3. 					 												 						Tell Me Some Good News ... a good example. The first iPhone became available in 2007. Now, the world is producing and selling over a billion Smartphones a year! Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide another example. While ...

27 January 2016

4. 					 												 						MOOC Enrollment Continues to Grow The first really large enrollment Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) was run by Stanford University in 2011. During the subsequent four years, the success of these courses as measured by completion rate ...

30 December 2015

5. 					 												 						Distant Learning: Potentials and Perils ... chnology is significantly and negatively affecting children’s development of these innate abilities. Distance Education You know about distance education provided through online courses and MOOCs (Massi ...

30 October 2015

6. 					 												 						Nearly 4,000 MOOCS A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course. Such courses have received a lot of attention during the past four years, and huge amounts of money have been spent in their development. Quoting from Ellen ...

26 October 2015

7. 					 												 						Technology-based Mini-singularities ... h of content that can be made available through HIICAL systems is well along toward being a mini-singularity. We also now have Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that can simultaneously teach a class ...

16 May 2015

8. 					 												 						Declining Law School Enrollments ... instruction to students is being increasingly addressed by the use of computer-assisted learning and MOOCs. In business, one of the goals is to develop products and sales techniques that will increase ...

21 December 2014

9. 					 												 						Forecasts About the Future of Higher Education ... are too high. It costs a huge amount per year to maintain a campus. Distance education and MOOCs have a tremendous cost advantage over our campus-based college system. Substandard classes and teachers. ...

28 October 2014

10. 					 												 						Disruptive Innovations in Education ... f major industry disruptions. Well, there are some ahead. My favorites are education, energy, and health care. They’re in serious needs of disruption. Look at education. You know what a MOOC is? It’s ...

18 September 2014

11. 					 												 						Harvard Is Investing Heavily in MOOCs ... The history of online courses is relatively long. The roots lie in correspondence courses, which began about 300 years ago. The history of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is quite short. On 8/2/2011, ...

23 May 2014

12. 					 												 						Thinking and Acting Globally ... pen Online Courses (MOOCs) are bringing low or no cost high quality educational opportunities to people throughout the world. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/entry/supersized-online-courses-moocs.html. ...

09 September 2013

13. 					 												 						Educating Students for Their Possible Futures ... progress is occurring in developing Highly Interactive Intelligent Computer-Assisted Learning Systems (HIICALs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These are starting to produce major global change ...

05 September 2013

14. 					 												 						MOOC-based Master's Degree in Computer Science Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a game changer in education. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course. Here are two quotes that help provide some of the (relatively short) ...

27 July 2013

15. 					 												 						Keith Devlin’s Thoughts About MOOCs ... n teaches at Stanford University, the home of the first Massively Open Online Course (MOOC). He has twice taught such a course, Introduction to Mathematical Thinking—most recently in fall 2012. He blo ...

01 June 2013

16. 					 												 						General Educational Development (GED®) and Online Testing ... pid progress in making available free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs); students successfully completing these courses can receive a Course Completion Certificate. Various universities are now ma ...

18 April 2013

17. 					 												 						Supersized Online Courses (MOOCs) ... ong the awards is the foundation’s first contribution to so-called MOOC’s, or Massive Open Online Courses, where professors let anyone online take their courses, sometimes attracting tens of thousands of learn ...

28 February 2012

18. 					 												 						Stanford University Is Offering a Free Artificial Intelligence Course ... Course movement (MOOC, n.d.) may signal a major change in education. Most of us are used to the idea that some courses are taught in large lecture sections that are accompanied by small discussion groups ...

02 August 2011

Author of this Page
This IAE-pedia page was developed by David Moursund.