By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor
[Updated 12.4.12: criterion added.]
It’s that time of the year when we begin to wonder who or what will be the Time 2012 person of the year. Keep in mind that the criterion is “the person who most influenced the news this year for better or worse.”
My heart says Pussy Riot.
My eyes and ears say PSY.
But I can’t ignore the elephant in the room.
The MOOC.
Filed under: MOOC |
Harry Keller: "I read that the virus can remain viable on hard surfaces for as long as 12 hours. " ("My Life in LA County During COVID-19: March 22").
Harry Keller: "People are working feverishly on [COVID-19] cures and vaccines. Until they arrive, we might as well be in the world a century ago" ("My Life in LA County During COVID-19: March 20").
John Mark Walker: "If educational communities can continue to push platform integration and content portability, in the future, students may be able to design their own personalized degrees from smaller, modular chunks that cross institutional barriers" ("MOOCs Are Dead. Long Live MOOCs!").
Richard Koubek, provost of LSU Baton Rouge: “Our vision is LSU, anywhere, anytime, and that physical boundaries would not define the boundaries of this campus.... You’re not going to get there incrementally. You have to change the paradigm” ("Successful Online Programs Require a Paradigm Shift").
Bryan A. Upshaw: "Most teachers already have the resources to videoconference. If they have a smartphone, tablet, or computer, then they probably have everything they need!" ("Bring the World to Your Classroom: Videoconferencing").
Judith McDaniel: "The nature of online education is that it removes me, the instructor, from the center of the learning process and allows the students to learn from me and from one another" ("Creating Community: Part 3 – Hard Conversations in an Online Classroom – Heart of Darkness").
Tim Fraser-Bumatay: "Although the format leaves us far-removed physically, the online forum has its own sense of intimacy" (Judith McDaniel, "Creating Community: Part 3 – Hard Conversations in an Online Classroom – Heart of Darkness").
Ryan Kelly: "For me to be able to work with people clear across the country for an extended period of time opened me up to new things" (Judith McDaniel, "Creating Community in an Online Classroom: Part 1 – Getting to Know You").
Daniel Herrera: "As a Mexican American, I know that words of identity are powerful; so to discuss white privilege with my professor and classmates in a face-to-face class would have been terrifying and impossible" (Judith McDaniel, "Creating Community: Part 2 – Hard Conversations in an Online Classroom – Othello").
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Lee Shulman: Whereas the traditional approach aims to achieve generalized findings and principles that are not limited to the particulars of setting, participants, place and time, the SoTL community seeks to describe, explain and evaluate the relationships among intentions, actions and consequences in a carefully recounted local situation (summary by Stefanie Panke in "ISSOTL 2013: ‘Doing SoTL Means You Never Have to Say You’re Sorry!’").
Jesse Stommel: "The course (and its participants) inspired our thinking about MOOCification, which basically means leveraging the best pedagogies of MOOCs in our on-ground and small-format online courses and laying the rest to waste."
Sean Michael Morris: "The MOOC has become something manageable, something we we can mine for data, and something that simply isn’t — and never was — all that innovative" (MOOC MOOC! The interview by Jessica Knott).
Curtis P. Ho: "The challenge will be to create and implement authentic learning in an online course. How authentic can learning be if we are confining it to a 15-week semester at a distance?" (A Conversation with Curtis Ho: AACE E-Learn SIG on Designing, Developing and Assessing E-Learning by Stefanie Panke.
Tom Evans: "We are ... using this MOOCulus platform as a learning tool for students taking Calculus at Ohio State.... However, any student, anywhere, can access MOOCulus, anytime, by logging into the site using their Google ID" (MOOCulus for Calculus Fun: An Interview with Tom Evans by Jess Knott).
Curt Bonk: “Today, anyone can learn anything from anyone at any time." "Students want feedback on everything they do. You know what happens when you give feedback on everything they do? You die” (Stone Soup with Curt Bonk: Armchair Indiana Jones in Action by Stefanie Panke).
Daniel McGee: "Successful [Calculus I] students appeared to need a unified approach, which emphasized verbal situations, geometric figures, algebraic expressions and the relations between them" (Study Suggests the Need for an Intergrated Learning Styles Approach to Calculus by Jessica Knott).
Kathlyen Harrison and Michael Gilmartin: "We highly recommend [Triptico] for teachers that want to improve interactivity, foster competition, and engage students in the learning process" (Triptico: A Powerful and Free Instructional App).
Bert Kimura: "If paper and pencil testing is absolutely required in a class, it probably shouldn’t be offered as a DE class. Not today anyway" (Remote Proctoring: More Questions Than Answers).
Cathy Gunn: "Traditional methods for effecting change at my institution aren’t getting us even to a trickle yet, let alone to thinking about or planning for a wave!" (How Will Traditional Leaders Fare in the Wave of Open Courses?)
Janet Buckenmeyer: "It takes more time to design and develop the [online] course. It takes more time to monitor students in an online course.... How are faculty compensated in terms of workload and pay for the additional work an online course requires? How many students should be placed in an online course?" (A Talk with Janet Buckenmeyer on Issues in Online Course Development, by Lynn Zimmerman).
Billy Sichone: "My phone has been a valuable asset as I can check the internet for information at any and every time. For instance, I once took an international trip to two countries in a row and the phone was my only source of assignment submissions etc. I did not miss out at all" (A Student’s View of an Open University: An Interview with Billy Sichone, by Stefanie Panke).
Julia Kaltenbeck: "Seek ways to build and maintain your community! The community is the single most important success factor in crowdfunding and social payments. To put it simply: No community, no funding" (Julia Kaltenbeck: How Crowdfunding and Social Payments Can Finance OER, by Stefanie Panke).
Jessica Ledbetter:
"What keeps me going is that I’m actually creating things I might not find the time to do otherwise. It’s nice to be able to learn with others and see what they’re doing. I always learn by looking at others’ code" (Open Learning at P2PU: An Interview with Jessica Ledbetter, by Stefanie Panke).
Susan Murphy: "We are all so afraid that we're going to miss out on something, so we just skim and scan and re-post without really taking time to consider the source. We sometimes forget that there are real people behind the avatars. And that it's worth getting to know more about them" (The Human Face of Twitter: An Interview with Susan Murphy, by Jessica Knott).
Jessica Knott: "While a lot of these younger students are pretty gung ho to go forth and innovate technologically, they will be stymied in many cases by an aging infrastructure and restrictive technology rules. Perhaps even by the culture of co-workers who discourage them from using tech in their teaching" (An Interview with Jessica Knott: Teaching an Online Class on Course Development).
Emily Hixon: "If a teacher thinks that she/he is going to be able to talk 'at' students and they will learn, she is mistaken. Teachers must be prepared to engage students and use technology to support an interactive, meaningful approach to learning" (Integration of Pedagogy and Technology in Teacher Education: An Interview with Emily Hixon, by Lynn Zimmerman).
Parry Aftab: "Unless we can make the technology safer and provide the right skills to use it responsibly and teach cyber-self-defense, we can’t expect students to use it, enjoy it or benefit from it. We owe it to the kids" (Bonnie Bracey Sutton, "Cyberbullying: An Interview with Parry Aftab").
Nancy Willard: "It sure does not help us in transitioning to Web 2.0 if the news is that cyberbullying is at an epidemic level. But it isn’t. And my approach will demonstrate the positive norms of students, which should also translate to greater willingness to also use these technologies for instruction" (Bonnie Bracey Sutton, "Cyberbullying: An Interview with Nancy Willard").
Marc Prensky: "Instead of just spending, and often wasting, billions of dollars to create things that are new, let’s try harder to fix what we have that’s already in place" (Simple Changes in Current Practices May Save Our Schools).
Spotlight Archives
Educational Technology and Change Journal 
Yes, MOOC seems to have reached escape velocity and is headed for the stars. I can’t recall seeing anything in education happen this fast. Just wait until employers begin to accept MOOC certificates in employment applications.
The New York Times chimes in with “The Year of the MOOC.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massive-open-online-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.html?pagewanted=all
It’s interesting that, as of right now, the MOOC is conspicuous by its absence in the list of candidates. In the people’s choice polling, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is leading. (See the list below.) The actual choice will be made by TIME’s editors and published on Dec. 21. The people’s choice results will be released a week earlier.
Kim Jong Un
Mohamed Morsi
Malala Yousafzai
Stephen Colbert
Undocumented Immigrants
Psy
The Mars Rover
Barack Obama
Bashar Assad
Jon Stewart
Felix Baumgartner
The Higgs Boson Particle
Pussy Riot
Hillary Clinton
Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein
Bill Clinton
Gabby Douglas
Michael Phelps
Sandra Fluke
Ai Weiwei
Mitt Romney
Chris Christie
Joe Biden
John Roberts
Mo Farah
Marissa Mayer
Benjamin Netanyahu
Michael Bloomberg
Paul Ryan
Jay-Z
Tim Cook
Mario Draghi
Xi Jinping
Bo Xilai
Sheldon Adelson
E.L. James
Roger Goodell
Karl Rove
Based on today’s news, I think that it should be the Pope. He undoubtedly has garnered the most number of followers in the shortest time. As of now he has over 330,000 followers. Wow!
Via @NYTimes:
Pope Starts Personal Twitter Account http://nyti.ms/SGdHzV
Bert, I think there’s a story here, hinging on the MOOC idea that the greatest lectern (or pulpit, in this case) in the world is the social media. Gives the word “social” a whole new dimension, doesn’t it? But what’s truly amazing is that you don’t have to be the Pope or a Stanford professor. Anyone, everyone can publish in this medium, and with the right stuff, each person’s message has the potential to go viral.
Even if the Time had listed the MOOC, people who care about the social impact of education would probably have voted for Malala Yousafzai all the same.
Perhaps they might have voted for the MOOC had it been offered back in 2008, when it was about connective knowledge. But now it has become a “Hey look, we have a Coursera MOOC” image affair, a bit like “Hey look, we have a Second Life island” a few years ago.
Thanks for the comment, Claude.
I disagree with your premise that those who don’t vote for Malala don’t “care about the social impact of education.” People have different reasons for their vote, but the key criterion is broad: “the person who most influenced the news this year for better or worse.”
I don’t know all the facts about Malala’s case, but I am concerned about the press’s use of a seventh grade girl in an activity that clearly puts her and her family in danger. She began her publisher-sponsored blog anonymously, but the dangers should have been obvious. The cause is a noble one, but who ultimately pays the price? The publishers?
Who shot Malala? Obviously, the person who pulled the trigger. But who helped to create the situation that placed her in danger? Could it be that, to some extent, we all did? In our need for inspiring stories?
Re MOOCs in 2008 — again, back to the criterion. Did it blow away the media back then? Hardly. It wasn’t until this year, 2012, that MOOCs exploded into the media.
I agree with your comment that the MOOCs causing all the commotion today aren’t true to the Siemens and Downes roots and many institutions are simply jumping on the bandwagon. But, again, that’s not the criterion.
Points taken, Jim: thanks. Yet what are “the news” since, say, 2002 when blogs became widely used, or 2005 when online video platforms did? Can “mainstream media” still be used as a yardstick for what is “the news”? As you replied to Bert Kimura: “Anyone, everyone can publish in this medium, and with the right stuff, each person’s message has the potential to go viral.”
This obtains for PSY’s video, of course, where mainstream media caught on, albeit belatedly. But also, on a smaller yet still impressive scale, for Dumb Ways to Die, a short accident prevention PSA from Melbourne Metro: 30,715,141 viewings in 3 weeks: that’s a kind of niche virality unlikely to influence “the news” in the traditional mainstream sense.
Back to Malala Yousafzai: children grow up fast in wars. There have been and there still are children militants in independence wars, there were children resistants in Belgium under Nazi occupation during WW2. Sure it would be better if they were able to live their childhood as their peers can in affluent societies where there is no war. But as they are forced into adulthood, their commitments are as serious as any biological adult’s. Malala Yousafzai probably owes her family the awareness of the importance of education for all. But her decision to literally stick her neck for it by making use of international media is hers.
And that’s why her third rank in the Time’s survey, a good way ahead of the first Americans (both entertainers), is an important tribute to the cause she has chosen to risk her life to defend. It’s also a sign of what “the news” have fortunately become nowadays.
Claude, thanks for the opportunity to continue this discussion.
Re your definition of “news” — I feel it’s a strawman since it doesn’t address anything I’ve said.
Re Malala — you seem to have missed my point completely. My concern is the publication’s apparent decision to allow a 12-13 year old to make a decision that imperils her and her family’s safety. Why? For newsworthiness? To spotlight courage? To create a hero?
By voting for Malala, are we holding her bravery up as an example for other children?
As I said, I don’t have all the answers, but I am concerned about well-meaning adults endangering children to promote their agenda — for good or bad.
Finally, I’m bewildered by your apparent glorification of children as combatants in war. Personally, I can’t equate “growing up” with engaging in combat when the “soldier” is a 12-year-old. I see nothing heroic in this. What I do feel is shame for the so-called “adults” responsible for exploiting children.
Of course, you and everyone else have every right to vote as you see fit. My concerns are mine, and they’ll guide my vote.
Are MOOCs just a VLE but open to everyone? With minimal instructor presence so dependent on peer-peer learning? If so, I have my doubts…. yes. I have participated in a MOOC
Thanks for the comment, Niall.
You’re correct to an extent. However, the VLE is not “just a VLE.” It is extremely rich, with literally no limits to learning resources. If it’s available on the web, it’s a potential knowledge source. When the walls of classrooms come down and distance and time are no longer barriers to learning, the “classroom” becomes the world with everything and everyone in it. In this context, the teacher’s role changes. S/he is no longer the sole conduit of knowledge, of feedback. Everyone, including all the students, is.
The question re peer evaluations is: Can students learn criteria and apply them to their own and their classmates’ work? The answer is yes. It had better be because if it’s not, then no learning is taking place. Each student has to understand the requirements for an assignment if she is to succeed. How does she learn to formatively and recursively evaluate her efforts? Perhaps the most efficient and effective method is to practice on her classmates’ work.
Participation in a MOOC, by itself, is no guarantee that a student fully understands what a MOOC is all about or how to make the most of it. MOOCs are different in very significant ways, and these differences translate into powers that we’ve barely begun to tap into. In situations such as this, we may want to withhold judgment until we learn more, and we can’t or won’t learn more if we don’t give it a real chance to grow.
Currently, MOOCs are in their infancy, and at this stage, to borrow a McLuhan principle, the medium is not yet the message. The content of this new medium is still the old medium of course, teacher, schedule, class, tests, and grades. Yes, the walls are gone, but the practice is still pretty much the same ole same ole.
But it’s a start. A first giant step into a whole new world.
[…] By Jim Shimabukuro Editor [Updated 12.4.12: criterion added.] It’s that time of the year when we begin to wonder who or what will be the Time 2012 person of the year. Keep in mind that criter… […]
Sure. MOOCs are in their infancy and they are not all the same. I have been experimenting with and using learning technologies for years so I am always wary of hype. I was disappointed by the design (both pedagogical and technical) of the MOOC I participated in. However, I have registered for another with a different provider so first steps
Hi, lisdigimedia. Please consider submitting an article (to this journal, ETCJ) on: “I was disappointed by the design (both pedagogical and technical) of the MOOC I participated in.” This would be an opportunity for all of us to discuss and learn from your experience. Also, another submission idea is the MOOC that you’re currently registered in. Perhaps taking the rest of us “along for the ride” as you work through the course? There are far more questions than answers re MOOCs, and firsthand accounts may have the most potential for edifying discussions. Jim (jamess@hawaii.edu)
What a fantastic post! The MOOCs are certainly offering us all a lot to think about, especially with Coursera now implementing career services! http://blog.coursera.org/post/37200369286/coursera-and-your-career