developing world moocs
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e/merge Africa Workshop, 18 June 2014TRANSCRIPT
DEVELOPING WORLD MOOCS: A WORKSHOP ON MOOCS IN AFRICA
EMERGE AFRICA ANDREW DEACON, JANET SMALL, SUKAINA WALJI
18 June 2014
Introduction
Belgium
Cameroon
Germany
Kenya
Poland
Rwanda
United States/Ethiopia
Swaziland
Tanzania
Nigeria
Uganda
USA
United Kingdom
Zimbabwe
South Africa
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Participants from Countries
Where are we from…
Online courses at your institution
yes potentialyes estab-lishednone
None Blended Fully online Blended, Fully online
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Flexible courses formats offered by MOOCs taken
NoYes, oneYes, many
MOOCs- open & online
Online coursesOpen content MOOC
Online Course MOOC
Numbers: Participant numbers capped by facilitation and assessment resourcing
MOOCs have attracted 10 000s by having almost no individual support
Motivation: Participants earn a qualification
Participants selectively take what interests them from a MOOC
Participants: Often have similar backgrounds
Often very diverse backgrounds
Assessment: Meets accreditation standards
Assessment standards less rigorous and not accredited
Cost: Pay to join course Participants access the course for free, paying for internet connection and optionally certificates
Lecturer: Responsible for teaching a curriculum aligned to a qualification and providing support
Lecturer’s role is more limited and excludes individual support
MOOCs didn’t just appear….
Image – Giulia Forsythe
2000 - 20072008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Open education
Online distance learning
Open education resources
Open conte
nt
Connectivist MOOC
(cMOOCs)
iTunes U, Khan
Academy
Open source software
Learning managemen
t systems
MIT – Open Courseware Consortium
Open University - OpenLearn
Stanford xMOOCs
Udacity
Coursera
MITx edX
FutureLearn
NovoEd
OpenUp Ed
Open to Study
Open Universities Australia
Directly related
An influence
Learning
objects
Open Textbooks
Adapted by Hodgkinson-Williams 2014 from UNESCO 2013
Cape Town OE Declaration
Paris OER Declaration
April 2012http://edutechnica.com/moocmap
October 2012http://edutechnica.com/moocmap
April 2013http://edutechnica.com/moocmap
October 2013http://edutechnica.com/moocmap
Participants
Completion Rates
http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html
= 2522
Mapping the landscape
e.g Global Citizenshipe.g Write Science coursese.g. Short corporate courses via private provider
e.g. most degrees
Showcase teaching and introduce topics with high-profile ‘rockstar’ presenters
Introduce fields and support students in undergraduate study
Develop skills and introduce topics for postgraduate study.
Showcase research and special interest topics of interest to postgraduate level
Showcase professional careers for continuing education and qualifications
Category 1 Teaching showcase
General interest high profile course
Showcases the institution by means of an engaging subject or personality led.
Global interest and matches a popular understanding of high profile MOOCs
n
High production costs | high enrollment | loose curriculum ties May attract external funding
Category 1 Teaching showcase
General interest high profile course
Showcases the institution by means of an engaging subject or personality led.
Global interest and matches a popular understanding of high profile MOOCs
n
High production costs | high enrollment | loose curriculum ties May attract external funding
Category 2 Gateway skills
Provides foundational, bridging or enhancement skills for pre HE entry or during undergraduate pathways towards specialisation.
Could replace teaching for 'bottleneck courses.’
Local interest, either within the institution or at a country-wide setting. Moderate production costs | low enrollment | close
curriculum ties May attract external funding |
Category 3 Graduate literacies
Post-graduate level courses to support application or programmes of study
Focussed on building postgraduate literacies.
Likely to be of local or national interest. Moderate production costs | low enrollment | close
curriculum ties May attract external funding
Category 4 Professional showcase
Geared towards vocational skills development, re-tooling and professional development.
Could be offered in conjunction with professional bodies.
Likely to be of local interest, although some specialised topics may be globally relevant. .
Moderate to high production costs |medium to high enrollment Close curriculum ties |May attract organisational fundingHigh potential for pathway to credit or revenue generation
Category 5 Research showcase
Showcase research or more specialised topics of interest
Offered at postgraduate level and assume some background in the topicstill geared towards general or leisure learning.
Likely to have global appeal.
Moderate/high production costs | medium/high enrollment Loose curriculum ties
Category 5 Research showcase
Showcase research or more specialised topics of interest
Offered at postgraduate level and assume some background in the topicstill geared towards general or leisure learning.
Likely to have global appeal.
Moderate/high production costs | medium/high enrollment Loose curriculum ties
Course offered simultaneously as a formal and as a open course.
Small private open course nested inside a MOOC
Massive Online Course: formal course inspired by MOOC pedagogy
Students in a course taking a MOOC with added local support and additional material
Massive Open Online Course
Formal course with lectures and support.
Wrapped MOOCs at UCT
Time TopicGroup meets every -Monday for 5 weeks
Critical Thinking in Global Challengeshttps://www.coursera.org/course/criticalthinking
Group meets every -Thursday for 5 weeks
Principles of Written Englishhttps://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-colwri2-2x-principles-1348 Group meets every -Monday
for 6 weeksUnderstanding Research: An Overview for Health Professionalshttps://www.coursera.org/course/researchforhealth
Group meets every second Wednesday for 5 weeks
Model Thinkinghttps://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking
Group meets every Monday for 6 weeks
Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trialshttps://www.coursera.org/course/clintrials
Group meets every Wednesday for 10 weeks
Data Analysis and Statistical Inferencehttps://www.coursera.org/course/statistics
Group meets every Thursday for 6
University Teaching 101 *NEW*https://www.coursera.org/course/univteaching101
Practicalities
Imagining MOOCs
The six ‘P’s approach: purpose possibilities pedagogy platforms & partners provisioning process to roll out
Purpose
Broad institutional goals Using the MOOC categories
Department / faculty goals Individual goals
Possibilities
Having decided on audience, purpose and category - what are the possible topics?
Make a proposal for an actual MOOC (or variant) – develop a concept
Pedagogy
How you want your MOOC to be taught online? (which will depend on your target audience, course purpose and expected learning outcomes, as well as costs and possibly platform affordances)
Platform and Partners
Which platform partner will suit your MOOC and work best for your institution?
Other stakeholders and funders
Provisioning
Two levels: 1. Institutional - applies to all Massive
Online courses. 2. Course level – applies to each
course
Process & roll-out
identifying an academic or team of academics willing to devote the necessary time to the project
constituting a course development team (online learning designers, academics & student assistants from department who will be offering course)
initiate course design course production schedule test materials launch course Running/supporting/monitoring Evaluation
What to expect
The key themes:- sheer workload involved in planning and
developing the content, - the resources required for video production
on top of the individuals’ ‘regular’ jobs. - Creating effective strategies to manage the
large number of participants in the MOOC forums was also reported as a challenge.
University of London 2013 report on MOOCs
Considerations - opportunities Reaching huge numbers of students Reaching a much broader range of
students Bringing expertise from the student
community into the learning environment
Learning from the experience of experimenting with different activities and online formats
Consideration - time
Every account from university MOOC-makers indicates a considerable investment of time – usually more than expected in the production of the MOOC
The time spent on the delivery and management of the MOOC for the first time was also high.
Subsequent offerings of the same MOOC were less demanding of time.
Considerations - risks
• adherence with copyright laws for use of all images, figures, journal articles, etc.;
• licensing agreements for any software that is used by course-takers;
• export control over any software or other technology that course-takers might have access to;
• complaints or suits from course-takers who experience damages to their computers as a result of downloading course software;
• accessibility issues (e.g., closed captioning, translation); and
• culturally-related concerns about course content (e.g., sexual, religious, or politically-related language or images). (Univeristy of Illinois 2013 (p 16)
What we’re hoping for in this two week workshop?
Your ideas and perspectives A better understanding of other
developing country contexts and how MOOCs could be used
Your insights to how MOOCs and their variants can and are being used
Encourage the voices of developing world educators in the debates on MOOCs
What’s next? This week
Read the paper & engage in the first discussion: How might institutions in Africa respond to MOOCs?
Look over the some of the other resources & engage in the second discussion forum: Should African institutions engage with MOOCs, and if so how?
Third discussion forum: Do MOOCs bolster Western higher-education hegemony?
Questions arising from paper1. How do you imagine your institution or department might respond to or engage with MOOCs?
2. How do the MOOC categories we outline resonate with your institutional or departmental priorities?
3. Have you ever experimented with MOOCs within your institution? If so, in what ways? and how has that worked? How did your students respond and relate to the material and presentations?
4. Have you consider using MOOCs in a wrapped or distributed flipped format? If so, how?
What’s next - week two activity
1. Can you develop the landscape of higher education provision we have presented and and customise it to your own context? Can you recognise what is happening in the formal, semi-formal and non-formal domains in your institution?
2. Can you suggest some additional categories of MOOCs we haven’t considered that might be appropriate to your context? What criteria might your institution or department use to determine what category of MOOCs
Reading list1. Our Paper on Developing World MOOCs: a curriculum perspective (in press). Available at Google Drive or on Emerge Africa site:http://bit.ly/1nj7WWP2. General reading list: presentations and reports about MOOCs Presentations from The MOOCs4D International Invitational Yuan, L., Powell, S. & Olivier, B, Beyond MOOCs: Sustainable online learning in institutions. Stanford Online - Review of 2013: Harnessing New Technologies and Methods to Advance
Teaching and Learning at Stanford and Beyond African Higher Education and Research Space (AHERS)
3. Blogs, articles and opinion perspectives On MOOCs as neocolonialism On developing country perspective On cultural barriers in the design of MOOCs On the potential to improve access to higher education
Reading list at:https://docs.google.com/document/d/16M-dpcK0Ws8v2QtQRvbgNfIXz0dgfZEMmCJ4r9ZWGkE/editPlease add resources and readings you have found!
Contact
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