3. THE MEANING OF MOOCS
BASICALLY THE WORD STANDS FOR :
Massive
Open
Online
Courses
4. HISTORY OF MOOC (precisely)
In the year 2004 George Siemens together with Stephen Downes made a theory
of connectivism.
They had a thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections
and thus learning pertain of the ability to construct and transverse those
networks (Downes, 2012).
Then in the year 2008 the first MOOC presented at the University of Manitoba
with a number of 2200 learners.
The again in the year 2010, Dave Cormeir captured videos and uploaded those
on youtube. (www.youtube.com)
During 2011, MOOC was part of preparation skills for new students in college
and a requirement.
In 2012:
The Harvard’s first MOOC had 370,000 registed students (Pappano, 2012)
The Coursera launched from Standford which offers the first xMOOCs (Chen,
2012)
In 2013 cMOOCs and xMOOCs were too many to count accurately
6. DOWNES’ MOOC MODEL
Four crucial elements for a successful MOOC as follows;
Autonomy: students decide on how much time to participate
Diversity: students come from various background, different disciplines,
different countries with different views
Openness: MOOCs should be open and easy accessible for anyone to
participate
Interactivity: chats, social networking, video meeting and collaboration
7.
8. TYPES OF MOOCs
X
Network building, collaboration
Rich social media
Informal learning
Academics, Non profits,
Individuals
Many-to-many (dialogue, peer
interactions)
Drive towards openness
Constructivist, connectivist
approach
Y
Organized group work
Social media required
More formal learning
Major Universities
One-to-many (student or content,
teacher or student interaction)
Open to join, but not every
content
Behaviourist, cognitivist approach
10. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
OF MOOCS
PROS
Computer and internet access
are only needed and internet
devices.
Students can share work, judge
others and receive feedback
Good instructors without high fees
of going to school
Learning is informal and at
student’s own pace
It is for free, unless college credit is
offered
CONS
Technical difficulties
Students must learn to be
responsible for their own learning
(no parasites)
Students must learn to be
responsible for their own learning
Limited real-world engagement
(face time)
xMOOCs involve costs, sometimes
significant
12. MY FIELD OF INTEREST
Firstly, I am interested in sharing ideas with my peers, learning from each
other out of new fresh ideas.
I do consider learning from my teachers and other expert, since they say
‘experience is the great teacher’.
This is a type of MOOC I would like to join.
I am also a life science educator, thus I would like to involve myself with
people in the same field.
My premise is to get ideas from different people and sharing my ideas with
them so that we can spread the love of Biological science to many people,
especially upcoming students.
13. Reference list
Moocs presentations. Available from:
http://www.slideshare.net/oerafrica/the-rise-of-moocs
http://www.slideshare.net/LynGoodnight/multmedia-presentation-
goodnight
http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/2013-05-06-moose
http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/education-as-
platform?from_search=11
http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/how-to-organize-a-
mooc?from_search=9 [accessed in 28/02/2014].