A MOOC is by definition a massive open online course. The term MOOC was coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier and / or Brian Alexander, who were involved in the seminal MOOC that year called Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, the first of many of what became known as cMOOC (http://nova.campusguides.com/c.php?g=112312&p=725994). Many people however associate the term MOOC with the xMOOC model initiated by Peter Norvik and Sebastian Thrun in 2011, the latter of whom went on to start Udacity. Coursera appeared soon after, followed by EdX, whose name Siemens co-opted in making the between cMOOCs (or connectivist MOOCs) and xMOOCs (Siemens, 2012). Some who have engaged in online training for the past decade or more are considering whether what they have been doing might have fallen under the definition of MOOC all along. EVO, now in its 15th year, could conceivably claim to be a precursor MOOC by virtue of its comprising a set of courses conducted entirely online, leaving behind permanent artifacts on open access, and reaching thousands of participants each year. As instances of online courses, both xMOOCs and cMOOCs utilize what has become known as flipped learning, an idea that many consider to have been first implemented on a wide scale in Khan Academy courses in 2004 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom). However, this common feature of MOOCs belies other significant differences. In guiding development of future EVO sessions, it’s worth looking at what characterizes and distinguishes cMOOCs from xMOOCs. This presentation lists affordances of the former which resonate with what normally happens in EVO sessions; e.g. use of social media, participant driven content, distributed communication, and no formal assessment, as specified in an article by Bates (2014) which is being used in EVO training this year. Furthermore, EVO is all about networking and communities of practice. The sessions strongly build content not only from a set syllabus in each course but in most cases from the discussion and creativity brought to each subject by participants from diverse perspectives from all over the globe. Thus EVO can benefit from considering its activities to be informed by elements of the cMOOC framework.

1. Why online teacher
trainers should know
about cMOOCs
Vance Stevens
Co-coordinator since 2003 of TESOL Electronic Village Online
EFL Instructor at HCT / CERT / KBZAC Al Ain, UAE
Global Education Conference, November 17, 2015

2. No need to take
notes
All my slides are online:
http://slideshare.net/vances
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

3. What is
Electronic Village Online?
 Electronic Village Online(EVO)
http://evosessions.pbworks.com
 5 weeks each January and February since 2001
 Organized by volunteer coordinators and session
moderators from countries all over the world
 Sessions designed by teachers for other teachers
 Offered for free to participants from around the globe
as a service to the profession
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

4. EVO Moderator training in
November each year
 Helps ensure that sessions included in CfP in Dec
meets standards expected in the profession
 The system invites innovation and creativity in how
sessions are mounted
 Training designed to not simply train moderators in
skills they may already have
 but to model how such training might be conducted
online
 One such model is MOOC, in particular cMOOC
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

5. What’s a MOOC?
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
Basic MOOC history
• Wiki view
• Wikipedia
• Starting with pre-history of MOOCs
• This page, click here
http://nova.campusguides.com/c.php?g=112312&p=725994

6. When did MOOCs begin?
 A MOOC by definition a massive open online course
 The term MOOC was coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier and /
or Brian Alexander
 Both were involved in the seminal MOOC that year
Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, the first of many
of what became known as cMOOC
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
Credit: Alan Levine https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/5416836395

7. Were there MOOCs before 2008?
 Alison, 2007
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Feerick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Networked_learning#MOOC
http://advanceducation.blogspot.ae/2012/11/when-
is-mooc-not-mooc-what-mooc-means.html

8. Why MOOCs?
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
Massive: Scales
Open / online: abundance vs. scarcity
Stephen Downes 2012; posted in Alan Levine:
http://cogdogblog.com/2012/09/21/just-ds106/

9. Connectivism: A learning theory for
the digital age (Siemens, 2004)
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

10. Understanding how cMOOCs
work is ineffable (must be experienced)
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
https://p2pu.org/en/courses/882/rhizomatic-learning-the-community-is-
the-curriculum/

11. Organization of a cMOOC
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
Community as Curriculum
As a participant, you might be asked to
• Enroll your blog with the MOOC
• Tag relevant posts with the MOOC tag
• use https://tagboard.com/ or a script to
aggregate ALL just tagged posts
from ALL participants
• And display them in newsletter format
• Participants can then interact with each other by
commenting on each other’s posts
http://grsshopper.downes.ca/about.htm

12. Coping with cMOOCs (Cormier)
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
http://youtu.be/r8avYQ5ZqM0

13. Flipped Learning in MOOCs
 As instances of online courses, both
xMOOCs and cMOOCs utilize what has
become known as flipped learning,
 an idea that many consider to have been
first implemented on a wide scale in Khan
Academy courses in 2004
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classr
oom).
 However, this common feature of MOOCs
belies other very significant differences.
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

14. Flipped learning in MOOCs
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom
http://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_aiclass/all/

15. Enter xMOOCs
 Many people associate the term MOOC with
the xMOOC model initiated by Peter
Norvik and Sebastian Thrun in 2011, the
latter of whom went on to start Udacity.
 Coursera appeared soon after, followed by
EdX,
 whose name Siemens co-opted in making
the distinction between cMOOCs (or
connectivist MOOCs) and xMOOCs (Siemens,
2012).
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

16. Thrun and Norvig’s xMOOC on AI
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
http://moocnewsandreviews.com/ultimate-guide-to-xmoocs-and-cmoocso/

17. xMOOCs
(Thrun went from Stanford to found Udacity)
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
https://www.udacity.com/courses#!/All
https://www.edx.org/course-list

18. Confusion over
cMOOCs and xMOOCs
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
http://degreeoffreedom.org/xmooc-vs-cmooc/

19. Siemens on cMOOC vs xMOOC
Siemens coined the term xMOOC in a 2012 post "xMOOC?"
http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-a-platform/
In which he said:
 "Our MOOC model emphasizes creation, creativity, autonomy,
and social networked learning.
 The Coursera model emphasizes a more traditional learning
approach through video presentations and short quizzes and
testing.
Put another way,
 cMOOCs focus on knowledge creation and generation
 whereas xMOOCs focus on knowledge duplication."
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

20. Is EVO a MOOC?
 Some who have engaged in online training for the
past decade or more are considering whether what
they have been doing might have fallen under the
definition of MOOC all along.
 EVO, now in its 15th year, could conceivably claim to
be a precursor MOOC by virtue of its comprising
 a set of courses
 conducted entirely online
 Creating permanent artifacts on open access
 and reaching thousands of participants each year
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

21. Maybe EVO is a MOOC
In guiding development of EVO sessions, it’s worth
looking at what characterizes and distinguishes
cMOOCs from xMOOCs.
 Some affordances of the former resonate with what
normally happens in EVO sessions;
e.g. use of social media,
participant driven content
distributed communication
no formal assessment
as specified in an article by Bates (2014) which is being
used in EVO training this year.
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

22. In conclusion … or more correctly To
further the discussion
EVO is all about networking and CoP
 The sessions strongly build content not only
from a set syllabus in each course
but in most cases from discussion and
creativity
brought to each subject by participants from
diverse perspectives from all over the globe
 Thus EVO can benefit from considering its
activities to be informed by elements of the
cMOOC framework
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

23. A short bibliography
 Bates, A. W. (2014), Comparing xMOOCs and cMOOCs: Philosophy and
Practice. Online learning and distance education resources.
Available: http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/10/13/comparing-xmoocs-and-
cmoocs-phil... (also available as Variations of MOOC Designs, Chapter 5.3 in
Bates' open textbook,Teaching in a Digital Age, 2015).
 Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic Education: Community as
Curriculum. Innovate: Journal of Online Education 4, 5:np.
Available: http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context
=innovate.
 Siemens, G. (2012). MOOCs are really a platform. Elearnspace.
Available:http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-a-
platf....
 Stevens, V. (2014). What we learn from MOOCs about Professional
Development and Flipping Classrooms - GLoCALL Ahmedabad
2014. AdVancEducation. Available:
http://advanceducation.blogspot.ae/2014/10/what-we-learn-from-moocs-
about.html. Also,http://www.slideshare.net/vances/plenary-ahmedabad2014.
 Stevens, V. (2013). From teacher networked learning to transformation in
your classroom. AdVancEducation.Available:
http://advanceducation.blogspot.ae/2013/09/from-teacher-networked-
learning-to.html.
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015

24. What else do you want to
know?
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
• Almost 500 posts about MOOCs:
http://www.downes.ca/mooc_posts.htm
• Downes, S. (2012). Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: Essays on
meaning and learning networks. Stephen's Web: My eBooks. Available
http://www.downes.ca/files/Connective_Knowledge-19May2012.pdf.

25. For more information from me
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
Take a side-tour: http://www.slideshare.net/vances/chaos-in-learning

26. Join us weekly on L2G
Vance Stevens at Global Education Conference 2015
http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/w/page/32206114/volunteersneeded
http://tinyurl.com/learning2gether

27. Thank you
This is Episode 301 of
http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/
Or http://tinyurl.com/learning2gether
Info and archives: http://learning2gether.net
Vance Stevens, vancestev@gmail.com