Rise Of The Mooc, Sym, Connectivism And Connective Knowledge

With online competency-based education, more people are able to participate in higher education. But for these students to be successful, they need to learn how to learn. As Thomas Friedman points out in his book “The World is Flat”, “The first,

There are many different ways to obtain a college degree, whether it is attending class in a classroom or taking online courses. Online learning is the more popular way nowadays because it is more convenient and more flexible, however, there are stipulations to taking online classes. In the "Read-Only Participants: A Case for Student Communication in Online Classes” article, it breaks down the ins and outs of online learning and how it can be beneficial to the students, the advantages and disadvantages, and how you can be a successful student by participating and not just being a “read-only” student.

Even with these disadvantages, Massive Open Online Courses are still a positive aspect for the current and future online students because with the free and easily accessible MOOCS classes, perspective online students have an alternative to education and it’s free! In order for the online universities to stay competitive, it is likely that MOOCS may force online universities to significantly lower online courses that are for credit (Casement, 2013).

One of the biggest concerns about online education today is something that Thomas Friedman calls the “ambition gap” (354). The new American generations are becoming less motivated and less ambitious than the rest of the world. Not only is sending american jobs to other countries cheaper but the individuals are much more productive and willing to do the work. Education Online would be enabling these next generation of students laziness. In a Ted Talks seminar, Anant Agarwal, the head of edX, tells his audience why Massive Open Online Courses still matter. Agarwal talks about the changing generations and how we ought to keep up with technology and embrace it in the way we educate. Agrawal insists,” so rather than driving our kids into a classroom, herding them out there at 8 o’clock in the morning-- I hated going to class at 8 o’clock in the morning, so why are we forcing our kids to do that? So instead what you do is have them watch

“This approach considers the student a motivated learner and the faculty a facilitator for learning. They challenge the 'sage on stage' and encourage the faculty to 'be the guide on the side'” (Bajaj). Additionally, Massive Open Online Courses allow class preparation, discussions, and practical learning. While some educators feel MOOCs are a threat to an educator, Gita Bajaj provides the examples of Wikipedia or the Khan Academy, where any professor could add a video courses. The author also mentions how one professor can influence millions of students by independently developing lectures and offer courses online.

In 2011, Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun and research assistant David Stavens founded Udacity, a for-profit platform on which MOOCs (massive open online courses) would be offered. One of their first classes, “CS 373: Programming a Robotic Car,” attracted 160,000 students across 190 countries. In simple terms of enrollment and global reach, Udacity was an instant success. Perhaps more importantly, Udacity showed the incredible potential of an online platform that can provide higher education to those lacking the resources traditionally required to obtain it.

In particular, it is failing to “promote and provide distance and time free learning.” Although FGCU offers a wealth of online courses for students to take from the comfort of their own home, or anywhere they choose really, the quality of such courses are not up to par with the education gained in the classroom. According to Douglas Rushkoff, “Online learning needs to cater to human users. A real instructor should not simply dump data on a person, as in a scripted video, but engage with students, consider their responses and offer individualized challenges” (3). Unfortunately, the state of online courses at FGCU falls under this criteria of simply dumping information on students, and online courses offer very little in the way of individualized challenges. While the quality of education in an FGCU classroom is unprecedented, the quality of education in an FGCU online classroom leaves much to be desired. Instead of a virtual classroom environment, an online FCGU course simply puts students through rigid, non-streamlined hoops that do little to insight creativity or academic advancement. And for this reason, FGCU is falling short of its information technology guiding

Just as robo advisors did to investing, massively online open courses (MOOCs) are attempted to democratize education for the masses. A MOOC, by definition, is an open access online course aimed at reaching a large population via the internet. With higher education under strain due to ballooning costs, online courses have opened of online courses for everyone around the world. Many of the lectures and course material taught are from renowned faculty and insinuations around the

Technology is changing every aspect in our lives, even the way we learn. Online classes are a rapidly growing trend it today’s society. Online classes are a cost-effective substitute for traditional courses and more convenient for many, so more schools and universities are offering this option. Due to the increase in online course enrollment, people are questioning if students truly learn something from online classes because it’s not a traditional learning environment. Online classes are just, if not more, effective as traditional classes because grades have increased and online discussions provide students with the chance to interact through networking while earning a degree for less than what it would cost to enroll at the same university.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) is a platform or model where learning or any other content is made available online to any one who is interested to learn or acquire information without having to be physically present in a learning set up.A good number of people have written articles and some have given talks on MOOCs;Among the Contributors include Aaron Barlow, Siân Bayne, Nick Carbone, Kaitlin Clinnin, Denise K. Comer, Glenna L. Decker, Susan Delagrange, Scott Lloyd DeWitt, Jeffrey T. Grabill, Laura Gibbs, Kay Halasek, Bill Hart-Davidson, Karen Head, Jacqueline Kauza, Jeremy Knox, Steven D. Krause, Alan Levine, Charles Lowe, Hamish Macleod, Ben McCorkle, Jennifer Michaels, James E. Porter, Alexander Reid, Jeff Rice, Jen Ross, Bob Samuels, Cynthia L. Selfe, Christine Sinclair, Melissa Syapin, Edward M. White, Elizabeth D. Woodworth, and Heather Noel Young Dr Karen Head and Thomas Friedman. This essay attempts to compare and contrast the views of Dr Karen Head and Thomas Friedman in as far as the effectiveness of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is concerned.

MOOCs evolved under the idea of “connectivisim”. The idea or belief was expanded by Stephen Downes. His connectivisim theory was very similar to concept of “active learning”. The term “active learning” was the idea of students participating in online discussion boards, watching created video instruction, and doing various types of “webquest” increasing active participation.

Massively open online courses (MOOC) platform rests on “self-service” and utilizing EdX to allow students the opportunity to obtain certificates of completion, versus degrees. The university will pay EdX a fee based on generated revenue for initial courses and “production help” revenue base for course development, with a potential for future licensing. The passing rate is anticipated to increase an estimate 60 to 91 percent, causing scrutiny and angst amongst traditional block and mortar educators; this translates to a speculated decline in educational quality and as well as the demise of trained educators.

Massive open online courses (MOOC) were introduced in 2008 by Dave Cormier. The original aim of MOOCs was to open up education and offer free access to University education for as many students as possible. They are generating a considerable attention and high interest from higher education institutions. They are viewed as an extension to current online approaches in terms of access (Hoxby, C 2014). The focus of MOOCs is to provide free, cutting edge education that reduces the cost of University education. Universities are beginning to provide online courses by establishing open learning forums such as edX. New businesses have emerged as a result of this opportunity for example organizations such as Coursera and Udacity have collaborated with elite universities to provide online courses for free or charging a small fee for certification. A new company in UK has been formed to provide free, open online courses from leading Universities in UK for learners around the world( Albert, S & Thomas, C 2000).

Education has undergone significant changes because of the development of information and communication technology over the 21st century (Lin & Jou, 2012:2). As a convenient and inexpensive way to gain knowledge while pursuing higher education, online learning, a form of training or teaching that takes place over the Internet, has been considered as an alternative to traditional classroom learning (Zhang et al, 2004). This essay will argue that even though online learning has benefit such as flexibility which could outweigh traditional learning, traditional classroom learning might still not be entirely replaced. This essay will discuss positive and negative aspects of online and traditional learning in terms of four criteria:

Education is an important part of people’s lives; it will either make them or break them in the future depending on the careers they choose. Education is greatly diverse today in comparison to the 1950s because of advancements in teaching and other great inventions that provide easier techniques of teaching. One major issue that has been raised is distant learning courses and online education.