Credit for MOOCs recommended by American Council on Education

Five courses from 3 universities are recommended for credit from the American Council on Education.  Universities include Duke, UC Irvine and U Penn.  All courses are offered through Coursera.

http://chronicle.com/article/American-Council-on-Education/137155/

MOOCs cited in the NMC Horizon Report - 2013 Higher Education Edition

The New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative name MOOCs as one of the top emerging technologies in higher education.  Read the short list from the report here:

http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-horizon-higher-ed-shortlist.pdf

Detailed findings from the study are available on their wiki: http://horizon.wiki.nmc.org/

Glitches de-rail Tech MOOC - for now

There's a lot of buzz right now over the glitches that plagued a Georgia Tech Coursera course, leading to a suspension of the class by the institution.  Ironically, the title of the course was "Fundamentals of Online Education:  Planning and Application."  The problems involved the use of Google Docs to facilitate group work and the inability of the application to handle the large number of simultaneous users.  It remains to be seen whether or not the course will resume, but this will be a valuable lesson in testing and scalability of tools used in MOOCs.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/georgia-tech-and-coursera-try-to-recover-from-mooc-stumble/42167

http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2013/02/the-moocs-that-ate-themselves.html

http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/sheilamacneill/2013/02/05/learning-from-our-mooc-stakes-and-sharing-learning-designs/

A student enrolled in the course speak out:

http://saoirseomara.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/trying-to-watch-the-first-lecture-videos-shock/

Skepticism about MOOCs

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/skepticism-about-tenure-moocs-and-presidency-survey-provosts

MOOC Degree at U of Cincinnatti?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/education/public-universities-to-offer-free-online-classes-for-credit.html?smid=pl-share

More educators weigh in on the lack of face to face contact in MOOCs

http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2013/01/25/is-computer-delivered-education-equivalent-to-one-with-a-flesh-and-blood-teacher-and-hands-on-experiences/

Guide to Setting up a MOOC - on WikiSpaces

http://moocguide.wikispaces.com/0.+Home+Intro+to+MOOC

More People Weigh in on MOOCs and their future in education

http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/12/the-mooc-movement-is-not-an-indicator-of-educational-evolution.html

http://www.informationweek.com/education/online-learning/is-2013-year-of-the-mooc/240146431

Credit for MOOCs?

One of the biggest challenges facing MOOCs are the ability to incentivize users to pay for these courses in exchange for some sort of credit - either through a certificate of completion or actual college unit hours. Several institutions are experimenting with different models.

 http://chronicle.com/article/California-State-U-Will/136677/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Coursera Co-Founder Daphne Koller Discusses the Importance of Improved Access to Higher Education

Koller and Andrew Ng are the co-founders of Coursera.  The goal of Coursera is to offer courses from top-tier professors at elite universities for free to students of all backgrounds all over the world.  This type of learning opportunity,  called MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), has gained significant traction and is sparking big debate in the world of higher education.

Shimon Schocken Discusses Self-Directed Learning on TED Talks

An enlightening talk by computer scientist Shimon Schocken on the incredible power of self directed learning.  Schocken and colleague Noam Nisan developed a course whereby students built a computer from scratch and used it to write and play games such as Pong and Tetris.

He also addresses the way that schools and collges assign grades and his beliefs on how this could be improved.  There are also several math apps he is developing that target K-12 students.