Massive Open Online Courses are leveraging today's technology to provide (typically) free access to world class education.
Only the proverbial ostrich (you know, the one with it's head in the sand) could look at the growing popularity of MOOCs and not acknowledge that technology has the potential to radically transform how education is delivered and the way that we learn. While change is not always a good thing, courses that are convenient and accessible across the world, and are often free, surely have a lot of good things going for them.
“MOOC†stands for Massive Open Online Course, and the number of institutions offering MOOCs is growing quickly. Thanks to increasing media attention and expanding offerings, interest in MOOCs has taken a significant leap forward in the last year (further attested to in this Google Search Insights graph).
Wikipedia's entry for MOOCs explains that, “MOOCs are founded on the theory of connectivism and an open pedagogy based on networked learning. Typically, participation in a MOOC is free; however, some MOOCs may charge a fee in the form of tuition if the participant seeks some form of accreditation.â€
According to Educause's “7 Things You Should Know About MOOCsâ€, the first MOOC is widely thought to be a course titled “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge,†which was co-taught by George Siemens and Stephen Downes at the University of Manitoba, delivered to 25 tuition-paying students but offered at the same time to around 2,300 students from the general public who took the online class at no cost.
A sampling of the current state of the MOOC
Today's MOOC offerings are expanding rapidly in terms of academic subjects covered, numbers of institutions offering them, and students partaking in them. To provide a sense of the widely varied approaches that are being taken with the creation and delivery of MOOCs, here's a sampling of start-ups, major players, and a few popular individual courses:
- Udemy: Making no bones about it, the ‘About' blurb on the home page of the Udemy site states, “Our goal is to disrupt and democratize education by enabling anyone to learn from the world's experts.†They have hundreds of thousands of students taking courses from their selection of hundred of classes courses covering a vast array of subjects. They have both paid and free courses, and these include courses from many different universities.
- Coursera: This growing powerhouse in the world of MOOCs, Coursera currently hosts courses from Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and University of Pennsylvania. They offer dozens of courses, covering subjects from “A History of the World†to “Vaccinesâ€. These courses are non-credit, but many colleges are starting to consider the possibility of offering credit for satisfactory completion of MOOC courses.
- Udacity: As of the writing of this article, recent start-up Udacity is offering only a handful of course, all in the computer sciences field. Founded by three roboticists who believed that much of the educational value of their university classes could be offered online, over 160,000 students enrolled in their first offering, “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.†Pretty impressive.
- Creativity & Multicultural Communication from SUNY Empire State College: This course was offered as both a MOOC and a for-credit course at the same time. The course was a ‘connectivist' course that mixed a variety of activities to facilitate learning and encouraged the use of selections from a wide variety of web-based tools for making a record of learning activities as students consume, remix and repurpose content (learn more on this ‘how it works‘ page).
- Change.mooc.ca: This course is just wrapping up, and has leveraged a mix of over 30 innovative thinkers, researchers, and scholars from the field of instructional technology, from 11 different countries. Each week, one of these professors or researchers introduces his or her central contribution to the field.
What does the future hold?
It's going to be interesting to see how the MOOC movement, along with open course initiatives like MIT's OpenCourseWare, evolve in the coming years, and how these developments relate to traditional higher education. If even a small number of universities and colleges start offering or accepting credits for these types of courses, it could easily grow into a larger trend, and lower the overall cost of completing a degree. Could this reshape how students earn college credit? Is this ultimately a harbinger of free higher education, or will it evolve into something else entirely? What do you think?
Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
8 Great TED Talks About The Future Of Education And Teaching
How Are Learning Analytics Being Used in Education?
Is Reverse Instruction Education Technology’s Perfect Storm?
[…] Massive Open Online Courses are leveraging today's technology to provide (typically) free access to world class education. Only the proverbial ostrich (you […]
[…] How will MOOCs impact the future of college education? […]
[…] for their college in this manner. After all, I see many articles and sites (College of 2020, Massive Open Online Course, Washington Post) these days on how colleges can no longer continue on their current tuition […]
[…] saving for their college in this manner. After all, I see many articles and sites (College of 2020, Massive Open Online Course, Washington Post) these days on how colleges can no longer continue on their current tuition […]
[…] Massive Open Online Courses are leveraging today's technology to provide (typically) free access to world class education. Only the proverbial ostrich (you […]
[…] Massive Open Online Courses are leveraging today's technology to provide (typically) free access to world class education. Only the proverbial ostrich (you […]
[…] Massive Open Online Courses are leveraging today's technology to provide (typically) free access to world class education. Only the proverbial ostrich (you […]
There is resource with the directory of all available MOOC courses http://myeducationpath.com/courses
[…] Walsh, K. (2012, April 25). How will MOOCs impact the future of college education?. [Blog posting]. Retrieved from https://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/04/how-will-moocs-impact-the-future-of-college-education/ […]
[…] Students Everywhere My MOOC Journal: Coursera Operations Management Course – Weeks 2 through 4 How will MOOCs impact the future of college education? Print This […]
[…] on https://www.emergingedtech.com Gostar disso:GosteiSeja o primeiro a gostar disso. Por progdan […]
[…] How will MOOCs impact the future of college education? From https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 12:54 PM Massive Open Online Courses are leveraging today's technology to provide (typically) free access to world class education. Via Neli Maria Mengalli […]
[…] on https://www.emergingedtech.com Gostar disso:GosteiSeja o primeiro a gostar […]
[…] Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out): How will MOOCs impact the future of college education? 10 Emerging Education and Instructional Technologies that all Educators Should Know About (2012) […]
[…] pay even the slightest bit of attention to the education media, you can hardly miss the mention of MOOCs (“Massively Open Online Courses”) in one article after another over the last few months. Of course, MOOCs are just one option for […]
[…] to check these out): Mark Milliron’s Sobering, Honest, and Inspiring Keynote Address at CT2012 How will MOOCs impact the future of college education? 4 Ways to use Online Resources to Keep Advanced Students Engaged and Learning Print This […]
[…] Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out): Introducing a Game-Based Curriculum in Higher Ed 4 Ways to use Online Resources to Keep Advanced […]
[…] Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out): 4 New Technology Tools for Measuring Learning Outcomes How will MOOCs impact the future of college […]
[…] geared towards higher education, but many of them are fine for advanced high school students. Click here to learn more and explore some MOOC […]
Open education is about sharing, reducing barriers and increasing access in education. It includes free and open access to platforms, tools and resources in education (such as learning materials, course materials, videos of lectures, assessment tools, research, study groups, textbooks, etc.). Open education seeks to create a world in which the desire to learn is fully met by the opportunity to do so, where everyone, everywhere is able to access affordable, educationally and culturally appropriate opportunities to gain whatever knowledge or training they desire.
[…] How will MOOC impact the future of college education  K. WALSH on APRIL 25, 2012 […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 3:06 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 2:55 PM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 1:38 PM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 1:14 PM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 8:00 AM […]
[…] How will MOOC impact the future of college education  K. WALSH on APRIL 25, 2012 Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Connectivism, Education, Learning, MOOC and tagged #Change11, CCK12, Connectivism, MOOC. Bookmark the permalink. ← #Change11 #CCK12 Is flipped classroom the solution to education? I wonder! #Change11 #CCK12 Do you know who are watching you? → […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 1:37 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 12:58 AM […]
[…] How will MOOCs impact the future of college education? | Emerging … Posted in Technology Education Tags: are-leveraging, free-access, massive-open, online, […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 6:24 PM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 5:03 PM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 2:24 PM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 12:31 PM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 9:12 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 8:45 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 8:38 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 8:09 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 8:07 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 7:50 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 4:18 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 4:01 AM […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com (via @Edubeat) – Today, 3:17 AM […]