(2012-05-15) Mooc Vs Moole

Doug Holton ponders some criticisms of MOOC-s, and wonders whether we should really be designing MOOLE-s.*

The question some people ask is, are MOOCs and similar ventures the future of education? Are they going to replace degrees and courses? Are instructors going to lose their jobs? To me that’s like asking if horseless carriages are going to replace horses. Maybe they will replace degrees one day, but if they do, I don’t think they’ll still be referred to as MOOCs, and perhaps not even as “courses,” just as we no longer refer to cars as horseless carriages.

As noted on the Networked Learning wikipedia page, Steve Fox (2002) argues that “networked learning is too often considered within the presumption of institutionalised or educationalised learning, thereby omitting awareness of the benefits that networked learning has to informal or Situated Learning.” And that latter point is important for reflecting on the MOOC model.

Situated Learning also helps us better understand how to focus on the learning rather than the content for its own sake, because often the reason we take the time to learn something is to solve some problem we have (Telic). One of the most popular applications of situated learning research to education is called Problem Based Learning... Examples have included water purification, or community playground design, and so forth. The problem, and the learning needed to solve that problem, are now at the center – not the content and not the instructor. And there is not necessarily an arbitrary ‘end’ to learning, nor do students need to be working on the same thing at the same time. In these kind of problem-based learning situations we may or may not even be talking about a course structure at all, but more broadly any real-world learning experience – MOOLE-s (massive open online learning experience) instead of MOOCs. I’m not saying that MOOCs are not MOOLEs though.

A rubric or checklist might help identify some things to notice. That is beyond the scope of this post, but a few potential items might include:...*