Week 5 has brought me new knowledge about a resource I've never heard of called a MOOC. A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course that is offered to anyone at no cost. Notable universities have taken interests, some have even partnered up to provide non-credit courses for free to the general public. This movement to make shared content and courses accessible for free is so new, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I'm not sure what the trend is about continuing this movement but I'm very curious about the why. Why are these universities offering courses for free? What is their motive, if any?
I spent hours looking at different sites that offer MOOCs because I was genuinely interested in signing up for a course that I felt would supplement my learning at the University. I signed up through Coursea for a course titled Fundamentals of Online education: Planning and Application. On day one of the course there was so much confusion and technology glitches that the course staff temporarily suspended the course until further notice in order to make necessary improvements. This left me feeling more stressed out because I literally wasted hours searching and deciding on that course. to be continued...
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Week 4 & Mooc's
Learning about MOOC's in our fourth week of class has made me really curious about the types of courses and the Universities offering them. As I read more into the history of how MOOC's have come to be, I still find myself questioning the motives behind it all. How can such notable universities be offering courses for free and more importantly why? I looked at several sites including coursea, udacity, edx, and Canvas Network. I was shocked to see the wide selection of course subjects and levels of learning that were offered.
I spent over 2 hours intrigued by it all while searching for a course that might assist my learning in this educational technology program. I was able to sign up for a course offered by Gerogia Tech titled
Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application. Only 2 days later I was emailed a notification that the course has been suspended due to "some choices made in the initial design of the class that didn't work out as well as we'd hoped." I was really bummed because I spent a lot of time deciding on this course. But I guess you can't complain, after all it is free.
I struggled to find another MOOC that interested me. I looked up courses on Canvas Network and decided on a course titled Social Media. Students explore emerging social media technologies and processes and study their application in a variety of contemporary settings. Students will learn how to use and author content for online tools such as blogs, microblogs, collaboration mechanisms, podcasts, RSS-feeds, video, bookmarking, and other emerging web technologies
I spent over 2 hours intrigued by it all while searching for a course that might assist my learning in this educational technology program. I was able to sign up for a course offered by Gerogia Tech titled
Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application. Only 2 days later I was emailed a notification that the course has been suspended due to "some choices made in the initial design of the class that didn't work out as well as we'd hoped." I was really bummed because I spent a lot of time deciding on this course. But I guess you can't complain, after all it is free.
I struggled to find another MOOC that interested me. I looked up courses on Canvas Network and decided on a course titled Social Media. Students explore emerging social media technologies and processes and study their application in a variety of contemporary settings. Students will learn how to use and author content for online tools such as blogs, microblogs, collaboration mechanisms, podcasts, RSS-feeds, video, bookmarking, and other emerging web technologies
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