#FutureEd

Sunday, March 16th, 2014 | MARK MCGUIRE | 1 Comment

"Change" by Felix Burton (CC-BY) http://goo.gl/VFSB5h

“Change” by Felix Burton (CC-BY) http://goo.gl/VFSB5h

Last week was Open Education Week (March 10-15). This annual event followed the final week of the “History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education”, a six-week Coursera MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that several of us at the University of Otago took part in. #FutureEd (the hashtag used for the course in Twitter and other social media sites) dealt with the opportunities for changing how we teach and learn in higher education, given the development of the Internet and innovations in pedagogy. Although it was a very American-centric course, the issues that were raised by the instructor, Cathy Davidson (from Duke University) are relevant to New Zealand and most of the other OECD countries.

MOOCs are adding to the increasing number of responses to the wicked problem of how to provide higher education in an environment characterised by continuing financial austerity and rapid technological change. It won’t be (and never has been) a one-size-fits all winner-takes-all single (or best) solution. We are likely to see an increasingly varied and complex future for higher education in which the various players and providers are more deeply intertwingled than ever.

CCK08 (Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, 2008) and the cMOOCs that followed could be described as pedagogically disruptive, as the coordinators (George Siemens, Stephen Downes, Dave Cormier and followers) were (and still are) experimenting with techniques that would help individuals to build and maintain their own personal learning network, rather than focussing on creating better (traditional, institutional) courses. Coursera, Udacity and the other xMOOCs (the “x” is from edX, the MOOC platform founded by Harvard and MIT) might be characterised as disruptive in terms of their business model (giving the course away, the freemium model, long tail, etc.) but, however technologically sophisticated, they are not progressive in terms of their pedagogical approach or in their use of open strategies. The fundamental differences in the objectives and the degree of openness between cMOOCs and xMOOCs was the focus of at least one discussion about #FutureEd that took place on Twitter.

The response to MOOCs by many university academic and managers (focussing on Coursera, Udacity and other xMOOCs), is that they are an inferior experience offered by venture capital-funded start-ups that have not managed to develop a workable business model. Therefore, they can be dismissed as a short-term experiment. Sebastian Thrun’s admission that Udacity’s low completion rates signaled a failure that required a significant shift in strategy was picked up by many who were waiting for their “I told you so” moment. This, despite the view that ‘failure’ in business is like iteration in design — it’s the way you find the approach, model, and solution that works.

Within academia, some healthy discussions are taking place about how to best provide our students with a high quality public education in the context of networked communication. These discussions should include the opportunities that open strategies present, as well as the pros and cons of MOOCs as one of many possible models. Unfortunately, the high profile privately owned for-profit MOOC platforms, which employ the traditional lecture format and machine marking of multiple choice quizzes, have diverted attention from the more transformative possibilities of open, collaborative practices that digital networks can support.

Although we (university academics, administrators and managers) like to consider ourselves as the champions of advanced teaching, learning and research, and as the guardians of the institutions that support higher education, the future may not be determined by what we believe is best for our students and for the future of universities. It is much more likely to be determined by those who have the money and the power to influence public opinion and public policy (and the former does not necessarily determine the latter). The disappointing reality is that the cMOOC vs xMOOC debate, and the growing open education movement will be of little interest to large private businesses and neoliberal politicians. We have seen the freezing, or actual reduction, of the public contribution to higher education across the OECD countries in recent years, especially sine the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. A belief in the public benefits of higher education has been replaced by a narrative in which tertiary education is considered to be a private good for which the individual consumer must pay. Unless we work hard to make our voices heard outside the academy, the public debate will be dominated by this view — one that devalues public education and shows more regard for the ‘free market’ than for the public good.

We are fooling ourselves if we think that higher education is immune from the significant changes that have reshaped other sectors. We are not likely to be left alone. The governments intention to reduce the size of University councils and to increase the number of ministerial appointees, despite considerable opposition, makes this clear. Tertiary Education Minister Stephen Joyce’s statement that universities need to “think more strategically and move more quickly on areas like online learning and MOOCs” suggests what might be in store. Change is going to come. The question, in New Zealand as in other countries, is whether it will come from within or from without, and whether it will serve the public interest or whether it will deliver yet another slice of the public sector to the maw of the market — one institution and one student at a time.

Note: This post is a revised version of comments that were published in response to blog posts by Jonathan Rees and Mark Brown.

Coursera “History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education” MOOC (6 weeks, starting 27 Jan. 2014)

Thursday, November 28th, 2013 | MARK MCGUIRE | 3 Comments

Future Next Exit (Photo by backofthenapkin CC-BY-SA)

I just signed up for a (free) Coursera MOOC called “History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education” (#FutureEd).This isn’t a “normal” Coursera MOOC. The instructor, Cathy N. Davidson (Duke University) is teaching a place-based course (ISIS 640: History and Future of Higher Education) in parallel with the MOOC, and she’s inviting others to form groups (or workshops or courses) to participate in the MOOC as place-based satellite nodes.

This looks like an interesting experiment, and it draws on the experience of DOCC13, the first Distributed Open Collaborative Course, which still running (check out the FemTechNet Whitepaper). Hybrid models that mix online and place-based teaching may be more sustainable (and more pedagogically sound) than the massive MOOCs on their own (or a single, place-based course in isolation).

It would be great if a group of us from the University of Otago could do this MOOC together. We could form a discussion group around it and meet once a week (those who are able to meet). Although Coursera suggests it might take 2-4 hours per week, here is no fixed amount of time that you have to devote to this MOOC (or any of these free MOOCs — people tend to dip in when it suits them). Although we can blog, tweet and interact with the course on our own, we might get more out of the experience if we met face-to-face and discussed the relevance of the videos and readings to our specific context. We all understand the value of group work, right?

So, what do you think? If you are interested, sign up for the MOOC (it comes with a no obligation, money back guarantee). If you want to join the MOOC Group (that would be a MOOCG, but I’m sure we could come up with a better acronym), leave a comment below, or contact me directly (email: mark.mcguire@otago.ac.nz Twitter: @mark_mcguire). If not us, who? If not now, when?

Related Links

The Coursera course
History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education (27 Jan, 6 weeks)

History and Future of Higher Education
This describes the strategy for a global movement to rethink higher education.

History and Future of Higher Education (ISIS 640) (Prof Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University)
This is the online syllabus place-based course she will be teaching at Duke.

Designing Higher Education From Scratch (Google Doc)
Posted by Cathy N. Davidson November 23, 2013
Her place-based students will do this a project. MOOC participants are also encouraged to work with this template.

What If We Could Build Higher Education From Scratch? What Would It Look Like? (blog post by Cathy N. Davidson)

How To Take On the MOOCs—And the Rest of Higher Ed Too (blog post by Cathy N. Davidson, 21 Nov 2013)

Storyboarding the Future of Higher Education. (blog post by Cathy N. Davidson, 15 May 2013)

Technology, Learning and Culture

This is a HASTAC group for “The History and Future of Higher Education,” the multi-institutional collaborative project (that includes the Coursera MOOC), that was initiated by the HASTAC alliance. We will list the Otago group on this site.

Course Readings

The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. By Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg (Free download)

Now You See It: How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools and Business for the 21st Century (by Cathy N. Davidson) [Paperback on Amazon]

Field Notes for 21st Century Literacies: A Guide to New Theories, Methods, and Practices for Open Peer Teaching and Learning
 Written and Edited by The 21st Century Collective (Online text)

Duke Surprise
An Innovative Course on Methods and Practice of Social Science and Literature,
Co-Taught by Dan Ariely and Cathy N. Davidson
Re-Mixed by #DukeSurprise Students as a Self-Paced Open Course (SPOC)

Invitation… Challenges, opportunities with MOOCs in Higher Education

Wednesday, May 29th, 2013 | Bill Anderson | No Comments

Following on from the successful Open Minds Seminar series in 2012, a Community of Practice has been established for Otago staff to share experiences and ask questions about what it means to be an ‘open scholar’. Over the course of our two-monthly meetings we might debate questions like:

  • Are MOOCs the greatest opening up of education ever or just an ivy league branding exercise?
  • Could I run my own class like a MOOC or use one within mine?
  • What does open access publishing mean for me?
  • What’s all this about governments decreeing that research outcomes must be made open?
  • What happens if I put my data ‘out there’?

In the first meeting we will be exploring the opportunities and challenges for higher education presented by MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Together we will discuss the principles of MOOCs, share experiences and look at the possibilities MOOCs present for Otago in more depth.

June 10, 1pm

University of Otago Central Library Conference Room 3

Some resources you might find useful to get you started:

Feel free to bring your lunch and come along with any ideas for future topic.

Openness around the world

Monday, January 21st, 2013 | Bill Anderson | No Comments

The current issue of the journal Open Praxis is devoted to the topic “Openness in higher education”. Have a read… http://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/issue/view/2/showToc

Several articles discuss the challenges of assessment – especially when learners want to credit their open learning to traditional/formal courses …

What would you do if a student asked for credit from a Udacity/Courseara/OpenLearn/OERu course?? Is there anything you could do at Otago?

 

UK Universities enter the MOOC-o-sphere

Sunday, December 16th, 2012 | Richard White | 7 Comments

Yes, the heading is somewhat facetious, but the first UK-based rival to the massive open on-line courses (MOOCs) Udacity, Coursera and EdX has been announced. Led by the Open University, 12 UK universities will offer on-line courses for free from 2013, though details are sketchy at this stage. Martin Bean, the OU’s Vice-Chancellor, says that MOOCs have the potential to revolutionise access to higher education and that “we want to be well positioned” (as quoted by the BBC report).

Given that the Open University has literally millions of people accessing its course materials each year, which are open to all and licensed with Creative Commons for re-use, the move makes sense in that they may be able draw more of those potential students into some more formal means of engagement. Early indications are that they will follow one of the models offered by the US MOOCs, where access is open but you pay for an optional certificate for a course or for an invigilated examination. One challenge for this consortium – as with the others – will be how to balance the cost to students for the on-line courses against that of on-campus students, who in the UK face a real cost of up to £100,000 for a degree, a government report has revealed, once interest payments are counted.

The other lingering question is whether students in on-line courses will be able to gain credit towards qualifications. This, as Mr Bean says, is the “big frontier” for on-line education in the MOOC era where the cost to students is driven down by their numbers and organisations see less tangible but no less significant value in the reputation and brand benefits ‘open access’ will bring.