H817 Activity 25: Reflecting on openness

The last activity in the Open Education MOOC is to write my reflection on openness.
This is what we were asked to do: "create a video and share it via your blog, using YouTube, Vimeo or other video-sharing sites. If you prefer not to create a video then you can use another tool or medium of your choice, but avoid just plain text in this instance if possible.

In your video reflect on what you have learned in this course, covering one of the following elements:
What aspect of openness in education interests you most (and why)?
What the future direction of open education will be in your opinion, justifying your answer.
Your experience of studying an open course versus traditional, formal education."

I selected to do a blog post and a presentation on the third - my experience of studying an open course versus traditional, formal education.

Reflection

 Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chillmimi/7885151124/sizes/c/in/set-72157631299591088/

First of all, I must confess that despite my best effort I almost gave up on this MOOC by week 3. The reason for this was that I could not keep up with the overload of information. There were lot of discussions happening, great resources posted for the learners and I wanted to do all of that resulting in not being able to finish up on anything. I never posted on discussions, left few comments on others blogs (I think) - but I read the discussions and that was enough to overload me. For those of you who do not know me, I am working part-time and managing a household with toddler twins and I hardly ever find a 'free time'.

Anyway, on week 4 I had my inner voice saying to me that "don't drop out" - had I dropped out of this course it would have been my third unsuccessful attempt to complete a MOOC. So I formulated a strategy "what I could do to complete this MOOC". I must thank Prof. Allison Littlejohn for sharing one of her recent work with us on the ELESIG symposium - Sharing research into learners' experiences of MOOCs and other new technologies where she showed that most successful participants had previously completed other MOOCs. She also said that they selectively participated in discussions. I had already co-authored two papers on MOOCs and another on OERs. So was fairly up-to-date with the MOOC literature. I could skip some of the readings suggested because I have read them before. I then concentrated on the tasks that were required to apply for the completion badges. The lack of time to read posts on forums made me a disconnected learner in the MOOC. Some may not approve of this strategy, however failing to complete the previous two MOOCs I participated, I needed a practical strategy to convince myself that I could do it.

When I was taking part in formal education I used to make sure I read all the items I could find from the reading list after each lecture. But then I had no other commitments that demanded my time (this was before I had children). I was free to stay late, wake early (which I never did) or stretch the study week into the weekends to finish-up what I started and I had minimal distractions. I don't think I ever posted on forums unless it was compulsory; I was a lurker (and still am - or am I not). I liked listening to interesting lectures and even if I was not interested in the lecture I used to take notes - lots of notes (so that I don't fall a sleep). It helped me to recall and recollect what was said in the lecture as I didn't like looking at slides for revision.

The main difference I see in the two experiences of learning is that the learner is wholly responsible for learning (or not) in a MOOC. Dedication and motivation required for this type of learning is very high as there are so much more stuff you could do with your time. For example, if you are online you could visit Facebook to see what your friends are up to, look at something you would like to buy on ebay or even just check the BBC news headlines. If you were learning in the class, that time is dedicated to be in the class (of course if one wanted one could go to the cinema instead). Also there are friends who will drag you to the class (or out depending on the type of friends you have). At the end of the day you have paid money and you want to have the degree, so the stakes are high. Where as for MOOCs you pay nothing and even if you do not complete you could do it perhaps the next time. But for me personally the main difference between the two experiences was "time" (and constant distractions).

I am really glad that I finally made it to the last week of this Open Education MOOC. I look forward to participating in another MOOC but next time I am going to try becoming a connected learner rather than be the disconnected learner I was in this MOOC.

H817 Activity 14: Comparing MOOCs - Change MOOC vs Udacity Offerings

.As part of my work for the MOOCs Understanding badge (Open Education MOOC) I am doing this blog post discussing two MOOCs - Change MOOC and offerings from Udacity. This was the original question posed to the MOOC participants. "Compare either DS106  or the Change MOOC  with offerings from Udacity  or Coursera. Write a blog post comparing the courses with regards to: technology, pedagogy,    general approach and philosophy."

In this post I am discussing the two different MOOCs Change MOOC and offerings from Udacity.

Change MOOC.
This MOOC was facilitated by  MOOC Pioneers: Dave Cormier, George Siemens and Stephen Downes and the course ran from September 2011 - May 2012. The MOOC  introduced participants to the major contributions made to the instructional technology field by researchers.
Technology: This MOOC used a number of technological tools. Course participants were encouraged to have their blogs, join Google groups for discussions, use del.icio.us for social bookmarking. Second Life, RSS Readers, UStream were other tools used. Elluminate was used to deliver online seminars and  course resources were provided using gRSShopper.The course encouraged participants to use technologies for sharing "you can use any other service on the internet – Flickr, Second Life, Yahoo Groups, Facebook, YouTube, anything!".
Pedagogy and general approach: In this MOOC, facilitators encouraged connectivist learning. The course description says "the learning in the course results from the activities you undertake, and will be different for each person. In addition, this course is not conducted in a single place or environment. It is distributed across the web. We will provide some facilities. But we expect your activities to take place all over the internet. We will ask you to visit other people's web pages, and even to create some of your own." Essentially this connectivist learning is about aggregating, remixing, re-purposing, and feeding forward. Though it is possible to participate on your own in this MOOC (that is without sharing your work ) it was strongly encouraged to share ones work.
Philosophy: In my view the philosophy in this style of learning is connectivist learning and connectivism as a philosophy where it is believed that "the starting point for learning occurs when knowledge is actuated through the process of a learner connecting to and feeding information into a learning community" (Kop & Hill 2008).

MOOC offerings from Udacity
When Stanford Professors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig offered their Artificial Intelligence course online for free there were over 160,000 students from over 190 countries registered in the course. With the mission to "bring accessible, affordable, engaging, and highly effective higher education to the world", Udacity was (www.udacity.com) was launched in 2012.
Technology: Udacity courses mostly use video lectures, but they also consist of interactive activities, quizzes, and exercises. Many of the videos available on Udacity courses have subtitle facility in other languages (for example, Spanish, Chinese, French).
Pedagogy and general approach: Each course provide the titles for each topic and looks very structured. Assessments in the form of short quizzes or exercises are provided with each topic. Each course provides a final exam, which determines the grade of the participant.
Philosophy: Courses provided through Udacity are well structured and seem to be suited for individual learners. Though Udacity encourages forums and community it does not seem an essential part of the learning philosophy. Udacity facilitators and students with high score of 'Karma points' (www.udacity.com/faq) earn the right to moderate posts.

Rodriguez (2012) identifies two categories of MOOCs: connectivist MOOCs (c-MOOCs) and AI-Stanford like Courses. He associates courses similar to AI-Stanford predominantly with cognitive-behaviourist approaches and c-MOOCs with connectivist approaches.  AI-Stanford type courses, (similar to Udacity courses we discussed above) have a more individualist learning approach while c-MOOCs (like the Change MOOC we discussed above) have a more social approach to learning. Daniel (2012) discusses about cMOOCs and xMOOCs, which he claims are a bifurcation of MOOCs. In my view both Rodriguez (2012) and Daniel (2012) are similarly classifying MOOCs but using the two different labels for the same thing: “AI-Stanford like courses” and “xMOOCs”. Today the terms cMOOCs and xMOOCs have gained popularity to refer to connectivist MOOCs and more structured type of MOOCs (such as the ones provided by Udacity).

cMOOCs and xMOOCs seem to differ not only from the philosophy but also from their use of technology. While cMOOCs encourage the use of multiple spaces for learning, xMOOCs seem to be conducted having a single platform for learning. This may appeal to different groups of learners. For example, it may be easier for learners to participate in and around one platform if they can not spend much time on the course or are not comfortable with various technological tools. On the other hand for technology savy participants and challenge seekers the use of a variety of spaces may appeal.

MOOCs have high withdraw/ dropout rates (Koutropoulos, et al., 2012). But data on completion rates of MOOCs are not readily available. Jordan (2013) the highest completion rate achieved was 19.2% on ‘Functional Programming Principles in Scala’, a MOOC offered by Coursera in 2012 (Liyanagunawardena et al 2013). This shows that dealing with high withdrawal rates is a common issue for both cMOOCs and xMOOCs.

Many MOOCs provide a statement of accomplishment such as the badge awarded by Open Education MOOC - for which I am writing this blog post for. However, these do not carry formal credits. On the other hand, there are five courses offered by Udacity, which charges a fee to the participants for proctoring exams, that carry college credits recognized within the California State University (CSU) system and to most US colleges and universities.

Conclusion:
cMOOCs generally use various learning spaces and technologies that facilitate social learning that forms the basis of connectivist learning. On the other hand, xMOOCs are contained in a specific platform and uses a more behaviourist approach to learning. Though cMOOCs and xMOOCs follow different philosophies, both have similar challenges (such as dropouts, recognition). Both types provide learning opportunities to anyone (who have access to the required technology and possess the digital literacies) that was not available few years ago. 

References:
Daniel, J. (2012). Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a maze of myth, paradox and possibility. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 3. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/jime/article/viewArticle/2012-18/html

Jordan, K. (2013, March 11, 2013). MOOC Completion Rates: The Data. Retrieved March 10, 2013 from http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html.

Kop, R. & Hill, A. (2008). Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past?, International Review in Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9:3.

Koutropoulos, A., Gallagher, M. S., Abajian, S. C., deWaard, I., Hogue, R. J., Keskin, N. Ö., & Rodriguez, C. O. (2012). Emotive Vocabulary in MOOCs: Context & Participant Retention, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from http://www.eurodl.org/?p=Special&sp=init2&article=507

Liyanagunawardena, T.R., Adams, A.A., & Williams, S.A. (2013). MOOCs: a Systematic Study of the Published Literature 2008-2012, International Review in Research in Open and Distance Learning (accepted for publication) 

Rodriguez, C. O. (2012). MOOCs and the AI-Stanford like Courses: Two Successful and Distinct Course Formats for Massive Open Online Courses, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from http://www.eurodl.org/?p=Special&sp=init2&article=516

H817 Activity 7 : Key Issues in OER - Developing Countries perspective

I am currently participating in Open Education MOOC run by the Open University UK. We were asked to " write a blog post of around 500 words, setting out what you perceive as the three key issues in OER, and how these are being addressed". So here is my blog post for this activity. However, I really think that this activity should have allowed participants to use more than 500 words - it is so difficult to discuss 3 issues in just 500 words.

Context Sensitivity
The majority of OERs appear to be created by scholars in the English speaking western world. This could create a potential threat of western views being imposed on learners, through the use of OERs, suppressing other world views and the imagination of people around the globe (Nguyen-Phuong-Mai, Terlouw, & Pilot 2012). It is more of a concern as perceived ‘high quality’ OERs provided by Big OERs seem to be passively accepted by the audience (McAndrew, et al., 2009). Thus creating an even greater threat of ‘cultural imperialism’ in using OERs for subjects such as history, where the presenter’s viewpoint can shape the perspective of the learner and where there is limited scope for independent verification of the frame (Liyanagunawardena et al. Working paper). It can cause confusion for learners who are not sufficiently mature to appreciate the different perspectives. One alternative could be localisation of OERs. Here localisation is not the mere linguistic translation of OERs, but the adaptation of it to a given culture. For example, linguistic nuances and examples used may have to be adapted to suit the learner’s background. Unless this is achieved these resources may not be meaningful to the learner. Whether these cultural aspects are seen or understood by OER users or whether they have any concern for them in finding and evaluating OERs is yet to be understood (Adams, et al. 2013).

Appropriate Technology and Literacy
Let me discuss this section in blogging language as opposed to academic writing style I have used in the previous which I thought would be boring for the reader.

While some view the lack of access to broadband as a technical barrier for the production and/or use of OERs, the large majority of people in the developing countries would consider themselves lucky to even have narrow band Internet access (or even computers). Despite the hype that the OERs will revolutionize the   education in developing countries by providing access to the poor who can not access education, in reality they are better serving the already privileged who have access. By 'access' I mean motivational, physical, skills as well as usage access (van Dijk, 2005). So in order for OERs as to be useful in the developing world producers should think about appropriate technologies for presentation.

The download speeds of Internet connections in many of the developing countries are not sufficient to download large files let alone viewing streaming videos. Liyanagunawardena (2012) discusses issues faced by Sri Lankan students, in downloading video lectures, who access the Internet from Internet cafes. While OER producers take lot of effort to produce high definition videos to satisfy participants with high expectations, these videos add to the challenges faced by developing countries’ users as the videos take either a long time or fail to download (Liyanagunawardena, Adams, & Williams, 2013). So it may be useful to have two versions of the materials catering for both groups of learners.

Sustainability
Many projects funded by aid agencies (mostly as loans) provide valuable services to learners. However, when the funding finishes (or the project comes to a closure) there is no way to maintain the equipment or the services. A good example is the Distance Education Modernization Project (Sri Lanka) which was funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The final report of the project admitted that the project had been ‘less effective’, ‘less efficient’ and ‘less likely sustainable’. So when implementing OERs the funding bodies should consider how it can be made sustainable. For example, voluntary (student and or teachers) projects or competitions can be a way of generating high quality content economically.

I would have liked to discuss this more but I have already exceeded my word limit.
(No of Words 565 excluding references)

References

Adams, A. A., Liyanagunawardena, T.R., Rassool, N., & Williams, S.A. (2013). Use of open educational resources in higher education, British Journal of Educational Technology (in press).

Asian Development Bank. (2011). Completion Report - Sri Lanka: Distance Education Modernization Project. Asian Development Bank. Retrieved April 04, 2013, from http://www.adb.org/Documents/PCRs/SRI/33251-013-sri-pcr.pdf.

Liyanagunawardena, T. R. (2012). Information Communication Technologies and Distance Education in Sri Lanka: A case study of two universities. School of Systems Engineering. PhD Thesis, University of Reading, Reading.

Liyanagunawardena, T.R., Adams, A.A., & Williams, S.A. (2013).The Impact and Reach of MOOCs: Developing countries perspective, eLearning Papers, 33,

McAndrew, P., Santos, A., Lane, A., Godwin, S., Okada, A., Wilson, T., et al. (2009). OpenLearn: Research Report 2006-2008: The Open University.

Nguyen-Phuong-Mai, M., Terlouw, C., & Pilot, A. (2012). Cooperative Learning in Vietnam and the West–East educational transfer. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 32(2), 137-152.

Van Dijk, J. (2005). The Deepening Divide: Inequalities in the Information Society. Thousand Oaks: Sage.