MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) continue to expand in number and enrolments. In a little over a decade, this growth has been impressive, with student numbers reaching just over 100 million in 11,400 courses in 2019 (you’ll find the 2018 statistics on MOOCs here). But what is meant by ‘massive’? Continue reading
Tag Archives: MOOCs
A peep at the progress of MOOCs
If you’re wondering how MOOCs are performing and evolving, a report has recently emerged that sheds light on one of the leaders in the field, the edX partnership between Harvard and MIT. Continue reading
MOOCs sense to me
If you undertake an internet search for ‘Making sense of MOOCS’, you’ll find two main results. One is to a 2012 paper by Sir John Daniel, and the other is a recent (June, 2016) publication from the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) and UNESCO. Continue reading
Sebastian Thrun, an ‘oily charlatan’?
I’ve written a couple of times about Sebastian Thrun, and not always in complimentary fashion. In the first piece from 2012 I could be accused of calling him a ‘knucklehead’. The second in 2013 was more a tracking of his change of heart and mind, from messianic mission to hard-headed business. Continue reading
MOOCs and OCW: come together, right now …
Last week Andrea Read from Online College Courses kindly sent me a link to a post on open courseware (OCW) that included a well-designed infographic on the scope and potential of online courses. Continue reading
Guest post*: Do MOOCs pose a threat to online universities?
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are the latest iteration of distance learning. But do they pose a threat to traditional, small scale online universities? To answer this question, let’s look at both the pros and cons of MOOCs in comparison to online colleges. Continue reading
Guest post*: e-learning, MOOCs and the changing face of UK universities
As a recent(ish) university graduate now working in the digital recruitment industry, I definitely have more of a vested interest than many of my peers when it comes to the future of UK universities – and I’ve been particularly keen to try and keep up to date with the recent changes that have been going on with the higher education industry in my country. Continue reading
Not just MOOCs: catching up with links
MOOCs are the current hot topic. And you might not be just reading about them, you may also be trying them. If so, are you one of the small band of ‘completers’, or did you discontinue? If you did drop out, then you’re not alone, as attested by the interactive graph produced by Katy Jordan. But there’s a lot more than MOOCs going on at present, and one way I try to keep up is to peruse my links from time to time. Continue reading
A MOOC on open education: go on, enrol now!
It’s only just started, so don’t delay, enrol for the UK Open University MOOC on Open education. Yes, our old friend Martin Weller has been at it again, and this time it’s a version of the Masters unit H817, ‘Openness and innovation in elearning’ made available to all via the UKOU’s OpenLearn initiative. Continue reading
Guest post*: Being educated isn’t enough – how the professional world is revolutionizing education
Be prepared, this is going to be a bit of a rant.
With the rise of MOOCs, administrators and professors are suddenly being pressed into taking sides. “Are you for or against online education?” It’s a question that some administrators (like the University of Virginia’s Teresa Sullivan) are likely to suffer the axe for siding one way or another. Continue reading