MOOCs as a Canary - A Critical Look at the Rise of EdTech
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Presentation from the 2015 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. We spend a lot of time researching what happens inside the MOOC...what about the data for what happens outside?
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MOOCs as a Canary - A Critical Look at the Rise of EdTech
- 1. MOOCs as a Canary A Critical Look at the rise of Educational Technology Rolin Moe, EdD Assistant Professor Director of Educational Technology & Media Seattle Pacific University @rmoejo Slides - http://bit.ly/1XigHDA
- 2. Assumptions Dominant Paradigm of MOOCs *US-centered *Capitalism *Colonialism Historical *Western Civilization *Age of Enlightenment *US Public Policy Education *Societal Superstructure *Historic Public Good *Movement to Private Good 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 by Alan Levine – CC BY 2.0
- 3. Education is a Promise
- 4. Technology is a Promise
- 6. Communication, and learning as a social process, will be the key elements in the conceptual development of third generation models of distance learning. – Soren Nipper, 1989
- 9. The Evolution & Impact of MOOCS Research Questions: 1) Where do experts agree on the impact of MOOCs on the higher education system? 2) Where do experts agree on the impact of MOOCs on discourse within culture/society regarding education? • George Siemens • Anya Kamanetz • Clay Shirky • Audrey Watters • Kevin Werbach • Cathy Sandeen • Peter Norvig • Todd Edebohls • Dennis Yang • Amy Collier …and more
- 10. Conversation Blah blah blah tenured humanities professor sanctimony. Explain to me how you occupy the moral high ground when your students graduate $30000 in debt and have no marketable skills. MOOCs reflect changes in education. In themselves, they are not "disruptive' (what a terrible word - it needs to be taken out back and shot and never used again by educators). Evident themes included: • The rise (rebirth?) of cognitive learning theory • A discord in the application of educational terms and vocabulary • MOOC = Online Learning (in the mainstream) • Economics are at forefront of MOOC debate
- 11. Four Notes for the Future • Higher Ed solutions to have economic implications at forefront. • Growing discord between MOOC developers, education scholars, and practitioners in regards to theory and pedagogy (cognitive style vs modern theory). • Continued debate of the purpose of higher education; increased focus on skills and competencies due to lack of voices advocating for the system. • Many “Future of Education” debates driven by non-edu voices, where terms and vocabulary are not negotiable (business, computer science).
- 12. Conurbation
- 13. Discussion
Editor's Notes
- Education is a Promise Make the argument that this promise is both individual and social. Rhetoric around an educated citizenry has long been grounded in the tropes of society and culture…from the perspective of Habermas we can trace back to Hellenistic eras and the public sphere to see that what has changed is not society but what we consider a citizen. These promises are thus coming from society and not from the structure of education. "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” – Jefferson A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. - Johnson
- Technology is a Promise These promises are much more geared toward individuals, seen in the explosion of science fiction in the post-Industrial Revolution. Usually these are engaging the individual more than society, and the tech is promoted for what Morozov would call ease and economy. Education in your pajamas Access to the world’s best education from home An internet connection and a can-do attitude?
- False Promises The false promises about education are much more about the common good and the common goal, though we see a tendency to look at the analytics of the marketplace (is the $$$ worth the degree), though the numbers still support the opportunity cost of higher education. And perhaps this is where the link of education and technology is most evident…when we see the false promises of technology we continue to see the problems associated with the individual (where is my flying car).
- This isn’t necessarily how educational technology was envisioned. If we are to pull back from the landscape of 2015 with LMS providers and data nodes and think about the forward movement, the *hope* of the education side of EdTech has often been to support community, connectivity and collaboration among people. Nipper in 1989 puts it well, as does Garrison in 2007. At the same time, they both draped their definitions within the development of the system – telecommunications was the third generation of edtech…and you could make an argument for the definition of 19th century correspondence courses as part of the same discussion.
- Hype. Lots and lots of MOOC hype. MOOC as Tsunami – John Hennessey, Stanford University In the future 10 Universities – Sebastian Thrun Media hype - media seems to be an easy blame person. What I love about MOOCs – it’s pretty easy to read the trends. Regular story is MOOC hype dead BUT. If we see the heads of Coursera, EdX or Udacity, someone just got some new VC funding. What’s unique are the times when we see public policy or governance. We have gone from MOOCs Will Solve to MOOCs have not lived up to the hype…BUT…
- If we are going to run data, we need to be thinking about that data from the sociological perspective and not just the pragmatic. Looking at what people are doing inside a MOOC is important, but it is just as important to look with the same research lens on what people are doing outside of the MOOC. We see hype, we bemoan it, and we move on, feeling better for ourselves and how smart we are for pointing something out, but failing to act in a more substantive matter. The research continues to be inside the MOOC.
- Ran a study to assess the MOOC and its impact on shaping discourse on education and educational technology. Delphi study consisting of 20 people instrumental in shaping the MOOC between 2012 and 2014. 4 were MOOC professors, 4 were MOOC researchers, 4 were MOOC developers, 4 were in government and public policy, and 4 were cultural critics/journalists.
- This study had no interest in looking at the analytics from within a MOOC; rather we wanted to have a discussion about some of the emerging themes in MOOC-related discourse. I took 12 quotations from MOOC-based literature (some research, some journalism, some critical assessment) and engaged the group in a discussion around the topic. There was a round of voting on whether people agreed or disagreed with the sentiment of the quotation, which helped to further facilitate discussion across three rounds. Questions were pulled if there was a 75% consensus on the topic.
- This brings us back to the front. The promises we say have been deflated are still there, reshaped and repackaged but remaining in existence. I don’t use conurbation as a pejorative…this is important. George Siemens challenged a new conference to go out and pursue research…and he was met with resistance. This is social, they said.