Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

[xSilverPhinx]

Has anyone had any experience with MOOCs such as those offered by Coursera, edX or any other?

I've been taking a few out of curiosity, and I'm liking them so far.   

[Tank]

My wife has considerable knowledge of this subject. She has decades of experience of distance learning; both delivering and consuming. In her opinion, and the experiences of the Open University MOOCs, are a complete waste of time and effort.

[xSilverPhinx]

 



Well...now I feel motivated.  

May I ask why she feels that way?

I've taken about 3 of my university's online courses and they weren't so bad. They aren't MOOCs, though, so maybe they have that going for them. 

[Tank]

Well...now I feel motivated.  

May I ask why she feels that way?

I've taken about 3 of my university's online courses and they weren't so bad. They aren't MOOCs, though, so maybe they have that going for them.

As far as I'm aware MOOCs are not the same thing as your average online course. MOOCs are the absolute educational incarnation of 'Pile 'um high, sell 'um cheap!' There is no support, you have to do it yourself and you have no idea what the level of any individual in the cohort is. If you can afford it you get it. The idea is to get information out to the masses. The practice is an 80%+ drop out rate through disappointment, lack of support and disaffection with the content/process. If you tend to be self reliant, like the course material and don't expect any help you could be part of the 20%that see it through.

[xSilverPhinx]

Wow, an 80% drop out rate? I didn't know it was that high.  Well, that makes it a bit of a failure, doesn't it?

There is the option to do it for free though, you purchase a certificate if you feel it's worthwhile. I didn't, at least not for the courses I'm currently taking.

You do get the feeling that it's tailored for the masses. Also, not having to interact bilaterally with a teacher is weird, but it's easy to get used to. 

One great thing about it is that you get to do it in your own time, which means no getting up early in the mornings. 

[Tank]

Wow, an 80% drop out rate? I didn't know it was that high.  Well, that makes it a bit of a failure, doesn't it?
...

That depends if your expected fall out rate is 50% or 90%. MOOCs were always expected to have a high fall out rate.

[xSilverPhinx]

Wow, an 80% drop out rate? I didn't know it was that high.  Well, that makes it a bit of a failure, doesn't it?
...

That depends if your expected fall out rate is 50% or 90%. MOOCs were always expected to have a high fall out rate.

Yes, I just thought it was something more like 30%...

[Icarus]

An 80% drop out rate validates the old time expression: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

I reckon that actual classrooms are more productive than online instruction. In the classroom there is peer pressure. Not so online where no one will know that you have given up or that you are screwing off.

Way back in the day, military personnel could take courses from a government agency called USAFI. (US Armed Forces Institute) They offered some good basic educational courses that would be beneficial to the applicant and to their jobs. The correspondence was by snail mail. There was an investment in time, study, and the cost of  postage stamps. As a student I was assigned a tutor who would grade my papers, offer help and return the papers marked appropriately. There was the feeling of one on one participation. The tutors were encouraging and there was also a certificate of completion that went into the individuals' service record. That weighed into the prospect of promotions. That's ancient history but I do hope that USAFI is still alive and well.

These days one can access a really good online resource named Khan Academy. It started out as a small endeavor by the generous wizard, Salman Khan. He was merely helping people with math subjects, for free. The subscriptions grew to an overwhelming number. Last I heard, the academy was asking for donations to help offset the cost of operation that served millions of users, but not a requirement. There are now many more subjects to explore at the academy.

I know very well about the road to hell and the good intentions from having been a volunteer tutor. I had more dropouts than students who completed the basic math courses that I taught.  That used to cause me some pain because I was not certain that I was good enough at that pursuit to retain the interest of my students. I did have students who were appreciative and who completed their studies. Just not enough of them to make a dent in the local level of innumeracy. I did notice that when I had two or three students in the same class sessions, that the success rate was far better.


 

 

[xSilverPhinx]

I reckon that actual classrooms are more productive than online instruction. In the classroom there is peer pressure. Not so online where no one will know that you have given up or that you are screwing off.

I agree, Icarus.

As for Khan Academy, I think what's he's doing is valuable but I find his videos boring. It's the presentation I guess. 

[Michael1]

I'd expect a high dropout rate as we find that new things just not easily integrate in our lives. I believe that with the excess of information and resources (due the evolution of information sharing) we should find our own way first before applying for a course, and then find the exact course we need online to match our activity.

As information is always there, learning for the sake of learning becomes obsolete. Say I'd love to learn math, but I find that in a decade math problems in life are being resolved way differently and therefore the course becomes obsolete. So courses I expect are being adapted to global needs and practice and perhaps not that interesting except to the people actually using them.

[Icarus]

God, standard educational stuff does by all means play into our lives.  Math for example is part of our existence.  Even music is math based. You cannot buy a Latte without doing some math to determine whether you have gotten the right change from your ten dollar bill.. You can not know what day it is without math and you cannot bake a cake that is a different size from the recipe without some math, and you can not balance your check book or determine the interest rate of your credit card or how much the credit card company is gouging you, or whether it is better to take a 25 year mortgage with high closing costs or a 20 year mortgage with low or no closing cost, or if the boat that you designed is going to float the way you intended, or if you dare draw to an inside straight,............and so much more that affects our lives. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to find copious uses of your math skills. In addition to those things, math is fun once you get into it.

Here's a fun stunt you can do to impress your non math friends.  Have them open a book, they are not to let you see the open pages. tell them to write down the page number on the left, add the page number on the right, turn the page and add the page number on the left.  Have them tell you the sum of the three page numbers. You can then tell them what the page numbers were.

How to do that??  You do not know what the first page number is....call it X, the second page number has to be X plus one and the third page number has to be X plus two.  If you wrote that down as if an equation it would look like this. X+(X+1)+(X+2) = sum.  That means that 3X plus 3 is the sum. Subtract 3 from the sum which leaves three 3X...divide by three and you have the first page number. Say the number they gave you was 126. Subtract 3 to get 123, divide 123 by three to get 41 which is the value of X and the number of the first page. Are we having fun yet? 

Try this one. Hand your friend a calculator. Tell then to think of any three numbers but do not tell you what the numbers are.  They have a three digit number displayed on the calculator. Now tell them to enter the same numbers right behind the first three. Now they have a six digit number on the calculator. You are a wizard and you are touching you fore head in deep thought.  Tell them if they divide the number by 13 the result will be a whole number, Wow! it is a whole number. Then tell them to divide by 11 and the result will still be a whole number, now tell them to divide by 7 and they will be right back to the original three numbers that they keyed into the calculator. You are indeed a wizard and a clearly astute math geek.  (polite applause)