Potential for MOOCs in Secondary Education

1. MOOCs for Secondary School Students
Rita Day, Brian Mulligan
Centre for Online Learning
Institute of Technology Sligo

2. What’s a MOOC
• Massive Open Online Course – A model for delivery learning
content online to any person who wants to learn more about a
topic
• No limit on attendees
• Geographically diverse
• Free or reduced cost
• Variability in structure, content and instruction
• 1000’s of participants
• Between specified dates
• xMOOC
– Short videos
– Third party materials
– Quizzes
– Peer graded assignments

3. History of the MOOC
• 2008 –
Connectivism and Connectivity Knowledge developed by
Stephen Downes and George Siemens
• 2011 –
3 courses through Stanford
160,000 students in 190 countries
• 2013 –
150+ Universities, 1000+ Instructors and 8million+ students
• 2015 –
Stanford 1.45 million enrolments per month – offers
exploration teaching, not a revenue stream, extension of
brand and footprint

4. How a MOOC is structured
• Readings, videos and recordings
• Completion rates are low
• No application process
• Similar to online courses
• Assessment can include exams, projects,
quizzes or discussion forums
• Set completion dates but some are self paced

5. Current Providers
• Udacity
• Coursera
• EdX
• Canvas
• Stanford
• MITX
• Yale
• Futurelearn

6. Emerging Student Patterns

7. Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
• Free or reduced costs
• Global access-richer
/wider community
• Global networking
• Self challenging
• Avoids instructor bottle
neck
• Non passive unlike video
only courses
Disadvantages
• Lack of quality across
courses
• Lack of individual
instruction
• Course variability
• Motivation and self
learning of individuals
• Accreditation via
assessment often added
for a fee
• Verification issues

8. Benjamin Bloom's Mastery for
Learning model
-Lecture based
-Personalised Instruction
-Mastery based

9. Costs to Develop
• Instructors develop their own courses
• Course development 100+hours
• Course management 8-10hours per week
• Provider services
• $250,000+ per course
• $50,000+ every time the course is taught
• Free to participants

10. Cost to Produce
• Can be cheaper:
–Free platforms
–Low cost recording tools
–Open Education Resources
–Instructional branding
–Quality and standardisation
• LoCoMoTion Project moocs4all.eu
– How to build low-cost MOOCs
– MOOC starting June 2015
– IT Sligo, Technical U. of Delft, U. of Girona, Fachhochschule
Bielefeld, U. of Leicester

11. Possible Settings for MOOC use
• Higher Education
• Hobbies
• Transition Year
• Minority Subjects
• Augmented classes – home school
• Flipped classroom
• New Junior Leaving certificate
• College readiness
• Careers/Professional development
• Advanced placement /
• Transferable academic credit

12. MOOCs for Teenagers

13. Hobbies (e.g. Nutrition and Fitness for athletes)

14. Transition Year (e.g. Computer Programming)

15. Minority subjects (e.g. Economics, Applied Maths)

16. Augment classes (revision etc.)
• Workshops
• Seminars
• Reflection
• Reaffirming learning
• Learning gaps

17. “Flipped classroom” (specified by teachers)
The prevalence of coding and programming has been
exemplified through embedding coding in the new junior
leaving certificate.

18. New Junior Cert Cycle ??
• “We need to build on young people's innate knowledge,
enthusiasm and passion for digital, and provide them with
educational opportunities that allow them develop skills that
make them highly employable," added Brennan.
• Train the Teachers in MOOC methodology

19. College readiness (e.g. Study skills IT Sligo, Feb
2016)
• CV and job applications
• Career exploration
• Fill in a skills gap
• Employers look to search MOOC database
• Getting working employability course –
Get Working MOOC
• Project at ITSligo to build a
MOOC for college leavers to
Get them ready for college

20. Careers (choosing a course)
• Life long learning – 40 years plus college
• Student profile of MOOCs
• Value proposition through MOOC completion
• Active learning in the classroom
• Blended learning outperforms face to face
• MOOCs as a mechanism for risk free exploration
• Explore topics and levels of difficulty
• Value recognition through certificate of
completion

21. “Advanced Placement” (College courses)
• Leverage contacts
• Students are taking a college course before
they arrive as type of course foundation or
skills gap
• Language development pre-college course

22. Intel Ireland MOOC Project
http://intelcodemaker.com/
• Funded by Intel Ireland
• Objective:
– To develop (4) free online courses in coding for young people
– Leverage the amount of data in this field
– Measuring value
– Quality at low cost
• Led by IT Sligo
– Project Manager, Rita Day,
Project Leader, Brian Mulligan
• Partners
– DIFE, DIT, CoderDojo,
FIT, SW College

23. Web Page Development
• Jessica Matthews, DIFE Drogheda Institute of
Further Education
• Currently piloting HTML, CSS
• Available Autumn 2015

24. Roboslam
• Frank Duignan, Dublin Institute of Technology
• https://roboslam.wordpress.com/
• Pilot 2nd March, 2015
• Available Autumn 2015
• Electronic fundamentals, C programming
• Requires ordering a kit (€250 / 10 kits)

25. Multiplayer Online Game Development
• Noel King, Coder Dojo
• Javascript, Server programming, Clientside
programming, networking, social
• Pilot delivery starts 9th March, 2015
• Available Autumn, 2015

26. Mobile Game Development
• Mark Taylor, Fast-track to IT (www.fit.ie)
• MIT AppInventor
• Pilot starts 13th April, 2015
• Available Autumn, 2015

27. Southwest College - Zambia
• Further Education – online meets the needs
• Free education in Africa (MOOC)

28. Any Questions?
www.itsligo.ie/online