Presented at the 2012 HighEdWeb Conference in Milwaukee. Compares the experience of a traditional online degree with a new MOOC to make observations about future directions in online learning.

1. The Future of
Higher Ed?
A Canary in the Coal Mine
of Online Learning Lori Packer
HighEdWeb 2012

2. “Online” learning
isn’t new
Walter Lewin, “Electricity and Magnetism” http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-
and-magnetism-spring-2002/ License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

3. “Online” learning
isn’t new
Walter Lewin, “Electricity and Magnetism” http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-
and-magnetism-spring-2002/ License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

4. “Online” learning
isn’t new
Walter Lewin
MIT Physics
professor
His courses
have been on
MIT CableTV for
almost 20 years.
Broadcast on
PBS stations in
the 1990s.
Walter Lewin, “Electricity and Magnetism” http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-
and-magnetism-spring-2002/ License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

5. Technology has changed.
Business models have
changed.
Commitment to open
learning and teaching is the
same.

6. Case Study #1:
Traditional
Online degree in Library and
Information Sciences from
Syracuse University’s iSchool

7. Case Study #2:
MOOC
Gamification course offered by
University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School through Coursera
Taught by Kevin Werbach (@kwerb)

8. What is a MOOC, you
ask?
• Massively Open Online Course
• Free, open to anyone who signs up,
all online (no classroom component)
• Udacity (Stanford), edX (MIT and
Harvard, Berkeley), Coursera (now
up to 33 partner schools)

9. What is Coursera, you
ask?
• Consortium founded by Penn,
Michigan, Princeton
• Major expansion in September: 17
new schools added
• For-profit, venture capital funded
• 200 courses, 1.35 million
students

10. Students

11. Case Study #1:
Traditional
• Students apply to the graduate
program, are accepted or rejected
• 20-30 students per class
• Mix of students who need the MLS
credential and students changing,
expanding careers

12. Case Study #2:
MOOC
• 80,000 students enrolled
• 43,000 have watched the
lecture videos
• 12,800 submitted the first
written assignment
• 10,700 submitted the second
written assignment

13. Case Study #2:
MOOC
• Students were STILL signing up
with only one week left in the
course -- Why?
• For future access to video
lectures, maybe?

14. Faculty

15. Personal Takeaway
#1
Faculty are HUGELY important to
the online learning experience ...
... maybe even more so than in an
in-person classroom experience.

16. Case Study #1:
Traditional
• Create syllabi
• Prepare lectures (usually)
• Moderate discussions forums
(usually)
• Devise assignments
• Grade assignments

17. Case Study #2:
MOOC
• Prepare lectures
• Devise assignments
• ... and that’s pretty much it.
• Grading = online quizzes, peer grading

18. More on Peer Grading
• Must complete 3 written
assignments
• Must evaluate essays from 3
students
• BUT ... why would a student in this
class know more than me on this
topic?

19. Lectures

20. Case Study #1:
Traditional

21. Case Study #1:
Traditional

22. Case Study #2:
MOOC

23. Case Study #2:
MOOC

24. Personal Takeaway
#2
The lecture isn’t going away.
The lecture -- as a format, as
content -- is what binds the
students together in an online
class, more so than
“discussions.”
It’s what we have in
common. It provides
structure.

25. Collaboration

26. Personal Takeaway
#3
“Discussions” are not
discussions.
Discuss.

27. Case Study #1:
Traditional
• Discussions are treated as
homework
• Effectiveness depends on the role
taken by the professor
• Blackboard makes following
discussion threads difficult

28. Case Study #1:
Traditional
• Other “collaboration” tools in
Blackboard:
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Messaging
• File sharing
• However, real collaboration took
place on Google Docs, Facebook

30. Case Study #2:
MOOC
• Discussion forums actually didn’t
play a role in the class for me at
all
• Real discussions were on Twitter,
mostly with friends outside the
class
• Discussion platform in Coursera
more user-friendly

31. Technology

32. Personal Takeaway
#4 educational
Less is more with
technology.
I don’t need a Swiss-army-knife
kitchen-sink LMS.
Make it easy to use, easy to
collaborate.

33. Case Study #1:
Traditional
“Blackboard is
not awesome.”
http://
goddessofclarity.com/
2011/07/18/blackboard-is-
not-awesome/

34. Case Study #2:
MOOC

35. The Future of
Higher Ed?

36. “The world is simply
moving too fast.”
-- University of Virginia
Board of Visitors Rector Helen Dragas
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2012/06/sullivan-
resignation-spotlights-long-running-debate-about-online-
education/

37. “Rarely is the question asked,
‘Is our children learning?’”
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/hack-higher-education/dropping-out-moocs-it-really-okay

38. “MIT and Harvard will use the
jointly operated edX platform to
research how students learn and
how technologies can facilitate
effective teaching both on-
campus and online. The edX
platform will enable the study of
which teaching methods and
tools are most successful. ”
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/mit-harvard-edx-
announcement-050212.html

39. Credentialling
•Mozilla Open Badges Initiative
http://www.openbadges.org/
•Can you get transfer credits for
MOOCs?
•Coloradocredits for Udacity’s “Intro to
transfer
State’s Global Campus offers
Computer Science” course
•EdX offers students option to take

40. Degrees
•Can youwith only Coursera courses?
degree
take a computer science
http://www.thesimplelogic.com/2012/09/24/you-say-you-want-an-
education/
•Where is your “degree” from?

41. Adding value:
Education or Prestige
“Think about how impressed you’d be if
your cousin got into Harvard. Then think
about how impressed you’d be if your
cousin told you she was going to enroll in
Harvard’s free online course. Then
subtract those two. The difference is the
value of a Harvard education.”
--University of Rocheste
professor Ben Hayden
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-decision-tree/
201205/how-harvard-and-mit-can-give-away-their-
only-product-free

42. “In five to 10 years, people are going
to look back and wonder why
universities ever crammed 500
students into an auditorium to listen
to a lecture for an hour and a half.”
-- Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/30/162053927/online-
education-grows-up-and-for-now-its-free

43. Questions?
I’m all ears.
< do canaries have ears? >