Keynote lecture by George Siemens at the European MOOCs in Global Context Workshop (19-20 June 2013 @ UW-Madison) http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/european-moocs-in-global-context-workshop-19-20-june-2013-uw-madison/

1. Disruptor, Saviour, or Distractor:
MOOCs and their role in higher
education‟
George Siemens, PhD
June 19, 2013
UW-Madison

2. Context

3. Education Sector Factbook, 2012

4. Allen & Seaman 2011

6. Increasing diversity
of student profiles
The U.S. is now in a position when
less than half of students could be
considered fulltime students. In
other words, students who can attend
campus five days a week nine-to-five,
are now a minority.
(Bates, 2013)

7. Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, 2013

8. McKinsey Quarterly, 2012

9. Moody’s Investor Services, 2013

10. The “why we have MOOCs”
formula
DK+ T+ L + (-)U= MOOCs
Plus humans have been very naughty historically, so we deserve them

11. The MOOC formula
Diversification of knowledge needs +
advancement of Tech/digital/mobile +
increased proficiency of Learners +
lack of University response =
MOOCs

12. Prominent MOOCs enshrine,
optimize, and instantiate the
education system of the past

13. This is bad

14. “Both student and teacher are unhappy
when chained to curricula and syllabi, to
tests and mediocre standards. An atmosphere
of uninspired and uninspiring common sense
may well produce satisfactory mastery of
technical “know how” and testable factual
information. Such an atmosphere, however,
stifles genuine understanding and the spirit
of adventure in research.”
Karl Jaspers, The Idea of the University 1959

15. An education system that fails to emulate the
characteristics information in an era is doomed to
fail.
Information today is:
Open
Distributed
Scalable
Social
Generative
Networked
Self-organized
Adaptive
Global

16. (I‟ll pick up on this later)

17. What we are seeing is the
complexification of higher
education
Learning needs are complex, ongoing
Simple singular narrative won‟t suffice going
forward
The idea of the university is expanding and
diversifying

18. Much of what MOOCs address is the
shadow education system.
They are not actual competition with the
existing education system

19. The university among us

24. From the current standpoint, we
see the MOOC as the hub of
change
MOOCs are more accurately seen as a
node in an expanding ecosystem of edtech
innovation, emerging pedagogy, and
complexification of society‟s education
needs.

25. Ed-tech startups
With transformations already underway in news,
music, videos/movies, startup gold rush now
turning focus to education

27. 2013: The year of the anti-MOOC

28. Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology

33. (Brief interlude, aka rant)

34. We (faculty) have lost the narrative
Education=employment
Basic research=devalued
Market forces and competition drive
education‟s future

35. The day Coursera became mortal

36. A little bit about change models

37. Kuhn: accumulation of anomalies, create
“phase changes” (sorry, hate the „p‟ word):
dramatic change, alteration of core
premises, development of a framework to
account for sub-changes

38. Carlota Perez: techno-economic change

39. So, together with this guy
www.downes.ca

40. and this guy
http://davecormier.com/

43. To unchain students from
curriculum and syllabi and foster
creativity

44. Distributed content and conversations

45. “…the fundamental task of education is to
enculturate youth into this knowledge-
creating civilization and to help them find
a place in it…traditional educational
practices – with its emphasis on knowledge
transmission – as well as newer constructivist
methods both appear to be limited in scope if
not entirely missing the point”
Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006, Cambridge Handbook of Learning
Sciences)

46. When systems are distributed, alternative
modes of integration are needed
Stasser-Titus (1985)

47. Challenge then is to create a new
integrated whole

49. Social and academic connection to the
university
Boyer (1987), Tinto (1993)
Psychological sense of community:
“Acknowledged interdependence”
Sarason (1974)
To integrate the university more deeply with the
knowledge needs of our society
Me (2013)

50. Disruptor? Saviour? Distractor?

51. Twitter/Gmail:
gsiemens