This document discusses developments in educational technology including MOOCs. It begins by defining openness and how education was historically based on scarcity but is now embracing online models. MOOCs are defined as being massive, open, online, and course-based, though they have low completion rates. Features of MOOCs from Coursera, edX, and Udacity are outlined. The document concludes by discussing open content and communities as well as Anderson's Interaction Equivalency Theorem, which states that deep learning can occur through student-content interaction alone.

1. Ed Tech, Moocs and Beyond
Terry Anderson,
Professor,
Centre for Distance Education
Feb. 2013

2. Openness
• A sociological, psychological, legal and
technological movement.

3. Definitions of Open on the Web
(From Google)
• affording unobstructed entrance and exit; not shut or
closed;
• affording free passage or access;
• open to or in view of all;
• accessible to all;
• assailable: not defended or capable of being defended
• loose: (of textures) full of small openings or gaps;
• start to operate or function
• not brought to a conclusion;
• not sealed or having been unsealed

4. Education was Based on
Old Models of Scarcity
P. Banbury 2009

5. Ed Tech Today
• Blended Classroom
– Blending best of classroom and online
• Online Course
– Access , Time and Place shifting
• Flipped Classroom
– Content acquisition alone, at home
– Learning objects, Khann Academy, Itune University
– Classroom for collabortion

8. But What about MOOCs??

9. Moocs
• Massive: - Scaleable,
• Open – Free as in tuition for students, not as
in editing, reproduction,
• Online – may support F2F MeetUps
• Course – Bounded by topic and time frame

10. MOOC Features
• Defined Curriculum?
• “Big Data” Mining
• Substitute student-content and perhaps student-
student for student-teacher inetrcation
• Maybe asynchronous, synchronous, mixed
• Paced or self-paced
• Upsell of auxiliary products
• Emerging credential options

11. • “Given our commitment to offer
courses from a broad range of
disciplines, we have invested
substantial effort in developing the
technology of peer assessments, “
• 2,700,000 registrants since 2011
• Courses: 197 in 18 subjects
• Social interaction: Online forums
and study groups, meet-ups
organized by students in about
1,400 cities
• Venture capital, for profit
New York Times

13. • Smaller number fo courses, mostly Science
and Tech
• Continuous Enrollment
• Academic integrity: Proctored final exams at
Pearson testing centers, for $89.
• Partnering with U of Alberta, machine learning
• Venture Capital, for Profit
New York Times

14. • Profile: Nonprofit run out of M.I.T. and Harvard; with the University of
California at Berkeley and the University of Texas system.
• 8 courses
• Social interaction: Rudimentary; only one course, given by the Harvard
School of Public Health in quantitative methods, has regional get-
togethers.
• Pacing: Courses have start and end dates. Registration closes two weeks
after start date. Students may miss a week but lose points if they don’t
make a deadline for turning in an assignment.
• What you get: Two certificates available, one designating an honor code,
one a proctored exam. Both bear the edX and campus name — for
example, MITx, HarvardX, BerkeleyX, UTAustinX.
• Foundation Funded, not for profit
• Research Agenda
New York Times

15. MOOC Completion Rates??
• Coursera Course Computational Investing,
January 6, 2013 by Tucker Balch ,
• 53,265 enrolled
• Completed the course:
– 4.8% of those who enrolled
– 18% of those who took a quiz.
– 39% of those who submitted the first project.

16. • “The students who drop out early
do not add substantially to the
cost of delivering the course. The
most expensive students are the
ones who stick around long
enough to take the final, and those
are the ones most likely to pay for
a certificate”. Daphne Koller,
Founder Coursera

17. The Interaction Equivalency Theorem
by Anderson (2003)
• Thesis 1. Deep and meaningful formal learning is supported
as long as one of the three forms of interaction (student–
teacher; student–student; student–content) is at a high
level. The other two may be offered at minimal levels, or even
eliminated, without degrading the educational experience.
• Thesis 2. High levels of more than one of these three
modes will likely provide a more satisfying educational
experience, although these experiences may not be as
cost- or time effective as less interactive learning
sequences.
Seehttp://equivalencytheorem.info/ 17

18. Conclusions
• Open Content
• MOOCS as one more, low cost, source of
student-content interaction
• Open Communities?? Open Credit?
• Web Presence, Contributions Artifacts, E-
portfolios,
• Social networking with and beyond Facebook?

19. • Slides on SlideShare:
• https://landing.athabascau.ca
kz
• terrya@athabascau.ca
• Terrya.edublogs.org