description of MOOC

1. By khomotso Queen Paledi
201311251

2. What is a Mooc?
 Mooc stands for massive open online course.
 It is an online course aimed at large-scale participation
and open(free) access via the internet.
 They are similar to university courses, but do not
intend to offer academic credit.
 A number of web-based platforms(providers Aka
initiatives)supported by top universities and colleges
offer MOOCS in a wide range of subjects.

3. History of MOOCS
 In the year 2004 George Siemens together with Stephen Downes made a theory
of connectivism.
 They had a thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of
connections and thus learning pertain of the ability to construct and transverse
those networks (Downes, 2012).
 Then in the year 2008 the first MOOC presented at the University of Manitoba
with a number of 2200 learners.
 The again in the year 2010, Dave Cormeir captured videos and uploaded those
on youtube. (www.youtube.com)
 During 2011, MOOC was part of preparation skills for new students in college
and a requirement.
 In 2012:
 The Harvard’s first MOOC had 370,000 registed students (Pappano, 2012)
 The Coursera launched from Standford which offers the first xMOOCs (Chen,
2012)
 In 2013 cMOOCs and xMOOCs were too many to count a

4. Different types of MOOCS
 cMOOCs
 The first MOOC ever offered was a cMOOC.
 Based on a Connectivist Learning Theory
 Knowledge / content is generated by teachers,
students and multiple others.
 Multiple technologies – 12 in this first MOOC – are
used to connect people participating in the course.
 On the fringes but cutting edge in terms of pedagogy
and technologies

5. sMOOC
Coursera MOOCs could be characterized as a Standard
MOOCs or an sMOOC.
 Founded in the fall of 2011 by Daphne Koller (Stanford)
and Andrew Ng (Stanford) and was launched in April
2012 after significant venture capital funding was
secured (MarketWire, 2012).
 As of 4th April 2013 Coursera has 62 university
partners and had registered over 3.5 million users
enrolled in over 300 courses in 20 categories
(Coursera, 2013a; Protalinksi, 2013a).

6. xMOOC
edX could be characterized as an xMOOC.
 the X signifying excellence, external outreach,
exploration, experimentation and expansion (Rodrick
& Sun, 2012) – holds for edX which has grown out of a
tradition of exploring online teaching and learning
(Daniel, 2012).
 MIT announced MITx at the end of 2011 for a launch in
spring 2012. MITx has now morphed into edX with the
addition of Harvard and UC Berkeley (Ed

7. Field of interest.
 I am interested in knowing more about business ,I
want to have my own business one (I cant rely on
teachers pay alone). therefore I would like to take a
course that would guide me on how go about opening
a business.
 I would also like to learn the skills of solving conflicts,
how to work with people and management skills ,as
this would come handy in my life especially in the
work place.

8. My MOOC topic: Entrepreneurship
and family business.
 This course will help me discover the tools and techniques
that will enable me to succeed in business.
 It is divided into four modules : who is an entrepreneur,
managing entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurial
enterprises and family business.
 In this course I will learn about:
 Entrepreneurial characteristics ,Migrant entrepreneur,
intrapreneurship, what is management, leadership
characteristics, conflict and creativity, business plans,
managing people and funding strategies.

9. References
https://www.mooc-list.com/ accessed 1/08/2015
http://www.slideshare.net/dudrah17/mooc-
presentation-32213612?qid=01188482-ac1a-4992-bfb2-
0a1d99d1e48a&v=default&b=&from_search=12 accessed
3/08/2015
http://www.slideshare.net/iaindoherty/everything-you-
need-to-know-about-moocs-well-almost?qid=65f05b2b-
12da-4dc6-a5cc-
4b7c82bc46ae&v=qf1&b=&from_search=9 accessed
o3/o8/2015