Higher Education in the United States in the Era of the MOOC's:

Utopia or Distopia?

Transcript of Presentation for Final Project of MOOC

E-Learning and the Digital Culture

Since I teach graduate courses in teacher training at USA Higher Education Institutions, I wanted to take this opportunity, in the final project, to reflect on the effect that MOOC’s could have on our present system. Will the MOOC’s usher in an era of Utopia, where students can take MOOC’s and convert them into credits, thereby saving money and time? Or will the result be Distopia, where all education is controlled by computer? This short presentation will explore those two options.

First, we must admit that for the middle class Higher Education in the USA is broken. The rich can afford four or more years away from home, and pay the tuition and fees. The poor get financial aid. It is those who are neither rich nor poor who must leave home, go to campus and take out loans to get an education. The education is highly structured, with required courses. Completion of courses leads to credit and appropriate credits lead to degrees. This is a hardship for many.

With a MOOC the situation is different. Instead of the student going to the college, the education comes to the student. The classes, though large, are free. The professors are observers and helpers only. The students grade each other.  There are no credits, no degrees, but badges.

 

What will this mean in the future? Will there be the Utopian scenario where students convert badges into  credits, thereby decreasing the time and expense of college? Or, if society recognizes badges as worthwhile and employers see them as appropriate for hiring, will the computer take over education, eliminating many higher education institutions, and doing away with the need for professors?

So Utopian or Distopian? Will Higher Education in the USA as we know it disappear in the future?

One thing is sure. This course has convinced me that Higher Education in the USA cannot afford to ignore the MOOC. The future will be interesting!

  

Interesting reference:

Online Educational Delivery Models

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/online-educational-delivery-models-descriptive-view

Excellent infographics

   

Rubrics

I like rubrics because in my long career as a student I often did not know what the teacher expected. I would ask and get vague answers. 

Rubrics should tell students what is expected. Students want to know how long an answer is required. Have you ever asked that question and received an answer like: “As long as necessary” but then, when the answer is submitted had points taken off because it was too long or too short? I have. 

Students should also know what is how they will be graded. I have found that including examples of good and poor submissions from past classes really helps students. 

Common rubric mistakes:

• Adopting a rubric from an online site that does not fit the assignment.
• Too detailed.
• Being so inclusive that it makes the assignment time consuming for the teacher to grade.
• Going from low to high instead of high to low in the scale.

I do not think rubrics are the complete solution. For several years I was a reader of grants. There were usually 4-5 people on a team, and we had a rubric, and we scored individually first sand then came together and compared our answers.  Although we all had the same rubric our scores often were very dissimilar. So, rubrics yes, but also written feedback to students. I think every rubric should include a column for teacher feedback, explaining why the grade was given. More work for the teacher? Yes. More fair to the students? Definitely. 

Adding Pictures to Your Online Class

IMPORTANT note on pictures of people: You should also be careful of including pictures of people in your online course. HIPPA and FERPA guidelines should be followed.

You should have their written consent to do this. I know it is done all the time, but it only takes one time for somebody to get upset and then you are in trouble. Also some students copy pictures from our classes and post them on sites like FaceBook, and that can be a problem.

I would suggest that you start with graphics from a public domain site. One site is http://antiqueclipart.com/ or http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx

NOTE ON COPYRIGHT:  

The CONFU (conference on Fair Use) has established the following guidelines for what you can use following the guidelines:

·         For motion media -(e.g., video clips) up to 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less.

·         For text- up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever less.

·         For music - up to 10% or 30 seconds, whichever is less.

·         For photos and images

·         Up to 5 works from one author.

·         Up to 10% or 15 works, whichever is less, from a collection

The reference is http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/confu.html

 Criteria for Adding Multimedia in the Online Classroom

Adding multimedia to the online classroom can enhance student learning. It can also distract from content and be a time waster.  In making decisions as to what multimedia to add I use the following criteria:

• 1.       Does it add a missing piece to the content?
• 2.       Is it easy for the students to access?
• 3.       Is it relatively easy for me to create, or to find on the Web?
• 4.       If it is on the web is the source reputable?
• 5.       Is there a text alternative, which is required by ADA?

#1. As a teacher of teachers I see a lot of multimedia being added to class because it is “glitzy.” A certain amount of “glitz” does make the class interesting. It is, however, easy to go overboard. One teacher put an emoticon in every message posted. After a while it was too much and a distraction. 

#2. I realize that sometimes students have slow connections, and multimedia takes a long time to load. Recently I was away from my home computer and, although I could get WiFi, the connection was dial-up. When I tried to access a video I could get to it, but received the message that a 6-minute video would take an hour to download. This is not acceptable for students. There must be an alternative.

#3. While I believe every teacher should have the support of an IT department usually the Instructional Technologists are overloaded. Teachers must be trained to do a lot of the work themselves, and often some will enjoy developing multimedia content. However, there is much already on the web, and teachers just need to know where to find it. I have a Diigo.com account that is a web site exchange where teachers share web sites. I find it very useful.

#4. However, not everything on the Web is worthwhile. Just as we tell our students to only use academic sources we should always check the author of any web-based multimedia creations (videos, games, graphics) that we share with the class. And, as teachers, we should be aware of Copyright law. We cannot just download and use without permission. We can link to web sites, but downloading to our computer is often not compliant with copyright.

#5. Not all students can profit from multimedia. A text alternative is required for ADA.  This also helps students with slow connections, or computers without sound cards (yes, there are some of those still around).