David Wiley introduced George by noting that he wrote the course for which the term ‘MOOC’ was originally created.  George similarly paid tribute to David’s stewardship of the OER movement.  Here are George’s slides, helpfully made available ahead of time.

The presentation started with a bit of a review of George’s experiences as a blogger and online educator.  This led him – and Stephen Downes – to think about ways in which to lever technology and openness to improve student learning.  Early courses encouraged public discussion and sharing of ideas and a move away from ‘transmission pedagogies’ which replicated the worst of classroom interaction online.

George noted (correctly, in my opinion) that innovation is typically iterative and collaborative.  Often there are so many strands that it’s difficult to identify the main one but rarely does it result from one person with some sort of moment of divine inspiration.

Learning systems should recognise this, being: flexible, open, accessible, build-able extendable, remix-able.  Most of Siemen’s reservations about current MOOC providers are down to the lack of these features.  He also questioned the ‘newness’ of MOOC by noting that large scale education opportunities have been explored through television since the 1950s. MOOC are actually, he asserted, a supply-side answer to decades of increased in demand for education.  The move to a knowledge-based economy in the West was not accompanied by a similar re-haul of education.  When only 10-20% of people go to university we can expect them to be self-motivated and reasonably competent learners.  As this figure increases, so the kind of support we need to offer changes with it.

Some recent (Gates-funded) research on MOOC discourse revealed the following:

  • There is genuine interest and good quality research being done on MOOC
  • 90% of conversations involved education researchers
  • Mixed-methods research are preferred by most

Now, the angst-filled reflection:

  1. MOOCs don’t prepare learners for the kinds of things that learners need to be able to do:  we need ‘stuff that stirs the soul’.  (This is similar to the argument made by Marcus Deimann and myself here.)
  2. Openness is being lost in the noise – we need an idea of openness that can engage with wide audiences the way that MOOC has
  3. Revenue models have come to be the focus for a lot of people
  4. Drop-out rates in MOOC do not matter because they can’t be compared to the level of personal investment that traditional university education involves
  5. We are too wedded to the traditional model and this stops us from properly exploring the possibilities that are available to us

Given these anxieties, what might provide succour?  We are currently witnessing the unbundling of previously existing network structures in education and this means that it can be rebuilt in ways that enable quality of learning and increasing access.  MOOC should be seen as a stepping stone towards this since they co-opt elements of the traditional university programme.  Fragmentisation of education ecosystems leads us to an open landscape which can be shaped.  Furthermore, MOOC have made technology-enhanced learning into a part of the public consciousness and wider conversations.

There is a bunch of MOOC related stuff at http://www.moocresearch.com/.  They have plans for a MOOC evidence hub too but they seem to be a bit behind on making this available.