4. What are MOOC’s- Massive Open
Online Courses
It is a free web-based distance learning program that is
designed for the participation of a large number of
students in different areas or places, it is aimed at
unlimited participation and open access through the
web, it also helps build a community for students and
teachers.
MOOC’s offer open enrollment, allowing anyone who
is interested to sign up, they permit students to
register without paying tuition, even those without
money are also able to register.
5. History of MOOC’s
The word MOOC was coined by Dave Cormier in 2008.
There were 25 tuition-paying students from the
university and 2 300 non-paying students from general
public who took the course online.
July 2011; Stanford, 2 courses on artificial Intelligence
enrollments.
January 2012; Coursera, edX, Udality funded.
January 2013; over 4 million enrollments in MOOC’s.
6. Different types:
Original cMOOCs were discovered in 2008 and the
better or well known xMOOCs in 2011.
xMOOCs took off in fall of 2011 with Intro Al Course at
Stanford.
Platform providers (Coursera, edX, Udacity,
FutureLearn) as well as content providers (Stanford,
Harvard, MIT, Edinburgh, Udemy, Yale and others.)
7. cMOOCs
It is actually learner centered.
Focus on constructivist and connectivist approaches to
learning.
Learning happens when students interact with
authentic material.
8. xMOOCs
They are mostly focused on instructive approaches to
teaching.
It is assessed in some sort of graded activity, there are
grades.
The instructor along with the support team record and
serve video lectures to learners
9. How are MOOCs different from
previous free online courses?
In previous free online courses learners usually did not
have enough information to master the content.
The syllabus was not enough to guide learners through
the content.
Learners were given few options to study as part of a
community, and no access to peers or professors.
MOOCs seek to change all that, it offers everything a
student need to learn, offer links to available resources
or even the content.
Provides students access to reading, activities etc.
10. MOOCs are:
Symbol of learning revolution.
Opportunities for massive research.
Basis for low cost sharing of content.
Standard part of higher and continuing education.
High quality learning pathway.
11. My Field of interest
Since I am Pursuing my teaching career in Life
Sciences, I would like to pursue these topics in my
future MOOC experience: Genetics, Molecules of Life
and Human evolution.
