The document discusses the development and lessons learned from teaching a MOOC on software defined networking. Key points: 1) The instructor filmed lectures using Camtasia software on his laptop to allow flexibility in recording. Producing each 10-15 minute lecture took around 2 hours of filming and editing. 2) Developing assignments that could scale to thousands of students and be automatically graded was challenging. The instructor had students use a pre-configured virtual machine. 3) Around 50,000 students registered but only 1,000-3,000 watched lectures and 500 completed assignments. Feedback was generally positive. The experience highlighted the benefits and challenges of teaching online courses.

1. A ReMOOCable Experience:
Teaching Computer Networking to
the Masses
Nick Feamster
Georgia Tech
Co-Conspirators:
Vrushali Moghe (Course Designer),
Muhammad Shahbaz (TA)

2. Talk Outline
• Why did I decide to teach a MOOC?
• How the MOOC was developed?
• Who is taking the MOOC?
– What does it mean to “take” a MOOC?
• Lessons Learned
• “Suggestions”

3. Why Did I Decide to Teach a MOOC?
• Develop an informed opinion
– Lots of “hype”
– Many opinions about MOOCs (most
uninformed)
• Pedagogy
– I have long thought that “lecturing is
dead”
– Chance to explore new ways of
teaching (forcing function)
• Exposure (“Fame”)
– Wanted to plant a stake on
“Software Defined Networking”

4. My MOOC:
Software Defined Networking
• Extremely hot, new topic
– No existing “real world” courses on the
topic (yet)
– A chance to develop an archetype course
(and material) that others might use in
their own courses
– I wanted to be copied. This seemed like
a good way.
• Boutique topic means that there were
no “set in stone” ways of teaching the
course
– Easier to think outside the box, since
there was no existing material anywhere
http://blog.sflow.com/2012/05/software-defined-networking.html

7. What the Instructor Sees

8. How Was the Course Developed?
• Course lesson plan, with learning objectives
• Top down design:
– Figure out modules, continue subdividing until
you get 10-minute “lectures”
• Production
– Lecture Filming and Production
– Assignments
– Syllabus
• Operation
– Forums

9. Filming Take 1: Studio
• Started in a studio at Georgia Tech
• This quickly proved intractable
– Studio is distracting. Lots of people watching
makes recording nerve-wracking.
– Studio time is limited, contentious, and expensive.
– Post-production quality was not to my liking.
– Faculty members need scheduling autonomy.
• A lot different from a TV interview!

10. Filming Take 2: Camtasia
• Studio people will claim that quality suffers.
• I believe this is bogus, for several reasons.
– People can take their time recording, take breaks, record
when they are “in the zone”.
– Screen captures from a laptop are easy.
– Recording quality from a good laptop is quite fine.
– Nobody has ever complained about the quality of the
recordings. Content is what matters most.
• Takes a little getting used to at first (looking at the
camera, etc.)
• You have to do your own editing.

11. Producing Lectures in Camtasia
• General rule: 10-15 minutes of lecture == 2
hours of recording and editing
– This does not include time to prep slides, etc.
• This is way different than a usual lecture!
– Biggest lesson: Silence is quite easy to edit!
– Stumbling is OK: Just say the same thing again
– You can also “practice” while the video is rolling
• Need to find a quiet, well-lit location
• Takes patience, but it starts to be quite fun

12. General Lecture Production Process
• Determine learning objectives
• Research the topic
• Write slides
– General format: Summary/outline, 7-10 content slides,
wrap-up
• Plan demonstrations
– Plan on-screen landscape
• Record (one sitting for consistency…big challenge!)
• Edit and export
• Upload
• Note: You can prepare lectures out-of-order!

13. New Modes of Lecture Production
• On-screen demonstrations
– Videos lend themselves very nicely
to on-screen demonstrations
– User can see things in “life size”
– User can pause, rewind, etc. Very
helpful tutorials for working through
assignments
• Interviews with luminaries in the
field
– Google “On Air” Hangouts
– Can be done anywhere, and people
are willing!
– Process: Invite, script questions,
send, revise. Stay roughly on script

14. Lessons from Lecture Production
• Lots of money is not needed. Students want
content, clearly delivered. Camtasia works.
• A 45–60-minute lecture is about 15 minutes of
well-polished video. Content distills well.
• Lecturer is always “ahead” of the students. This
creates interesting time-shifting effects, with
advantages and disadvantages.
• MOOCs are asynchronous and autonomous for
the student. This is a big reason for their success.
Production should be the same.
• The medium may not replace the lecture hall, but
it is way more efficient for certain content.

15. How Was the Course Developed?
• Course lesson plan, with learning objectives
• Top down design:
– Figure out modules, continue subdividing until
you get 10-minute “lectures”
• Production
– Lecture Filming and Production
– Assignments
– Syllabus
• Operation
– Forums

16. Developing Quizzes: Stick to the Basics
• Problem: The platform basically stinks at anything that’s
not multiple choice or simple numerical answer.
– Short answers become massive regular expressions
– …will likely improve as the software gets better
• Stick to multiple choice if possible
• Main differences from a normal MC quiz
– Helps to write up explanations for each option
– Need to figure out if students can re-take the quiz, and if so,
how many times

17. Developing Assignments is Hard
• Wanted to teach concepts and programming
– Not a “heavy-duty” programming course, but
some concepts are best explained and learned
through short code exercises.
• Code submission possible, but grading must
be done on regular expression evaluation of
output
• Problem: How to guarantee uniform
programming environments?

18. Uniform Environment: Virtual Machine
• Asked students to:
– Install VirtualBox (or equivalent) virtual machine emulator
– Download 64-bit VM image that had everything pre-
packaged (no asking students to install software
themselves). Kind of like a lab at home.
• This has generally worked. A few problems
– VM is huge (~1 GB), so have to get it right the first time
– Not everyone has a 64-bit machine
– Certain performance, even when run in an emulator, varies
depending on underlying hardware

19. How Was the Course Developed?
• Course lesson plan, with learning objectives
• Top down design:
– Figure out modules, continue subdividing until
you get 10-minute “lectures”
• Production
– Lecture Filming and Production
– Assignments
– Syllabus
• Operation
– Forums

20. Communicating with 10,000 Students
• I feared absolute disaster
– Small glitches in
assignments in a classroom
of 50 students create
mayhem.
– I feared that I would be
spending my life answering
minutia in online forums.
• Thankfully, this did not happen!
• Lesson: Giving an assignment
to 10,000 students in a MOOC
is easier than giving it to 50 in a
classroom!

21. Why Assignments Can Scale
• First of all, you do your best to work
out the bugs, mostly out of fear 
– We attempted everything that
we assigned, sometimes on
multiple platforms
• More importantly: Self-selection!
– Everyone doing the assignments
wants to be there
– This makes a huge difference
– People not only fix issues
themselves, they rewrite
documentation
• Caveat: Course difficulties vs.
platform difficulties are currently
hard to tease apart. Some of this is
“user error”.
A student’s blog post describing part of
the assignment setup in detail…

22. Who is Taking The Course?
• 50,000 people
registered
• 10,000 people
active each week
• 1,000-3,000
watching lectures
• 500 turn in
programming
assignments

23. Some Feedback

24. Lesson #1: MOOCs Change the Game
for Instruction
• Everyone is watching you
– In seven years, never got feedback (or
acknowledgment) about on-campus course
– Now, everyone’s eyes are on you
– Huge pressure to do a good job
• MOOCs are a “forcing function” for introducing
new media into the classroom
– I wouldn’t have thought to do “on air” interviews for a
classroom; people would likely decline them anyhow
– I will likely re-use some MOOC content in the “real”
classroom

25. Lesson #2: Time Investment Pays Off
• Typical Course Creation (45-minute lecture)
– 1-2 hours to create slides
– 1 hour to deliver the lecture
– Number of students: 50-100
– Total: 3 hours per lecture
– … but then you have to do it again! (can’t save an awesome
lecture, students can’t rewatch, etc.)
• MOOC Course Creation (10-minute video)
– 1-2 hours to create slides
– 2-3 hours to produce the lecture
– Total: 3-5 hours per lecture
– Number of students: 500-100,000
– … but, you have the archive. Can keep improving it, use it to
enhance in-classroom discussion, etc.

26. Lesson #3: Certain Aspects of MOOCs
Scale Surprisingly Well
• Lectures are watchable by thousands
– The scale can be a motivator for guest lectures!
• Programming assignments can be graded
automatically, if designed well
• Self-motivated, self-selected students fix
glitches, help each other out

27. Some Surprises
• The platform is “bare bones”
– Wiki-style editing is not full-featured (e.g., no double-
indented lists)
– Regular expression matching does not work well
– Responses almost always are “DIY”
– UI is horrible… perhaps a good HCI project? 
• Copyright considerations appear to be different
from normal classroom use (“fair use” may not
apply)
– People are making this up as they go along

28. Conclusions
• Much of the focus of MOOCs has been its
effects on students, universities, etc.
• But there is also an effect on instruction.
• Instructors of MOOCs will also become better
classroom instructors.
• Teaching is moving to the forefront of research
universities, too. This is a good thing for
everyone involved.