Introduction in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) emerged approximately five years ago with the release of «Connectivism and Connective Knowledge» offered by the University of Manitoba . This first MOOC intended to provide a different type of learning experience due to it’s a typical construction (no registration, no learning objects, no assignments and no assessment and evaluation). Learners were expected to share their ideas on blogs, Twitter or other social network tools, thus utilizing the Internet as an open cultural space. This is an unusual course. It does not consist of a body of content you are supposed to remember. Rather, the learning in the course results from the activities you undertake, and will be different for each person. This type of course is called a ‘connectivist’ course and is based on four major types of activity:
- Aggregate
We will give you access to a wide variety of things to read, watch or play with. There will be a lot of content associated with this course, everything from relatively basic instruction to arguments and discussions to high-level interviews with experts in the field. You are NOT expected to read and watch everything. Even we, the facilitators, cannot do that. Instead, what you should do is PICK AND CHOOSE content that looks interesting to you and is appropriate for you. If it looks too complicated, don’t read it. If it looks boring, move on to the next item.
- Remix
Once you’ve read or watched or listened to some content, your next step is to keep track of that somewhere. How you do this will be up to you. You can keep a document on your own computer listing all the things you’ve accessed. Or, better yet, you can keep a record online somewhere. That way you will be able to share your content with other people.
- Repurpose
We don’t want you simply to repeat what other people have said. We want you to create something of your own. This is probably the hardest part of the process. Remember that you are not starting from scratch. Nobody ever creates something from nothing. That’s why we call this section ‘repurpose’ instead of ‘create’. We want to emphasize that you are working with materials, that you are not starting from scratch.
- Feed Forward
We want you to share your work with other people in the course, and with the world at large. Now to be clear: you don’t have to share. You can work completely in private, not showing anything to anybody. Sharing is and will always be your choice.
Initially, there was a lot of enthusiasm about such open formats (Stacey 2013), but this later gave rise to some disenchantment because of the abundance of material and infrastructure. As Weller (2011) points out, education and pedagogy shift from the economics of scarcity, in which there are relatively few experts to whom learners have access via physical interaction (e.g. lecture), making the best from the limited resources (experts and materials such as textbooks) to a model of abundance in which expertise is still rare. However, access to resources is now virtually unlimited, thanks to open access journals, slide, podcasts, videos and so forth .This is also indicated in the aforementioned MOOC principles because they impose moral values to learners (sharing, openness) albeit with the «opt-out clause» («you don’t have to share»).
Moreover, any instructional assistance for learners to help them master the challenges of openness and abundance are neglected, which would be especially important for novices . Not surprisingly, research has revealed an «expertise divide» that is not atypical for online learning, but in case of MOOCs becomes more problematic given the outstanding importance of openness. In contrast to a «closed» e-learning environment, learning in a MOOC is based on the assumption of already existing skills and not designed to compensate missing digital competencies. Meanwhile, MOOCs have become both a medium of mass instruction and a philosophy of instruction with roots going back to the earlier Open Education movement. Boven (2013) provides an account of the historical antecedents of the MOOC movement that identifies interesting parallels, such as the «studia» (Studium generale) in medieval Europe. The studia did not have formal and central administration controlling admission, matriculation, and commencement. Instead, masters with a reputation as scholars and teachers attempted to attract students from local communities («studia particulare») and from across Europe («studia generale»). Although not massive in terms of today’s understanding and also not in scale due to technological limitations, these early learning forms entail core educational values of MOOCs, namely the non-hierarchical exchange of ideas between teacher and learner on an individual autonomous level and the belief in the power to be guided by a master through the seven liberal arts. In a similar vein, Peter and Deimann (2013) reconstruct the role of openness for education by reviewing major trends over such as student driven education, open teaching and self-education, and the right access to knowledge. In their conclusion it is emphasized that, throughout the centuries there has been a strong connection between socio-technological improvements and increased opportunities for teaching and learning. This pertains not only to institutional settings but also to self-organized forms. Today this is reflected in virtual learning spaces such as Peer-To-Peer-University or Open Study, which offer free courses and an open platform for international study groups. However, a similar strong alliance between students and teachers that had occurred during the Late Middle Ages has not yet emerged. There is a rather loose connection in the Massive Open Online Courses given the very low formal structure. On the other side, iTunesU can be regarded as a digital resemblance of the historic practice of inviting scholars/lecturers to a group of students.
