View of MOOCS: A NEW MEDIA OF EDUCATION

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Vol. 04, Issue 01,January 2019 Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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MOOCS: A NEW MEDIA OF EDUCATION Dr. Sunita Tripathi

Head, Dept. of Education, K. B. Post Graduate College, Mirzapur, U.P. India 1. INTRODUCTION

The role of teachers today is changing from simply distributing knowledge, to heeding the comprehensive feedback and high-quality assessment of the students.

Rather than being teachers literally, they are becoming schools in themselves, imparting both knowledge, skills and attributes to one and all. In this way, they produce an entire batch of skilled and intelligent students in every class that they head to. Of all the facts, one is absolutely true, ―No Technology Can Replace Teachers. However, it is also the responsibility of the teachers to a great extent to incorporate modern education technologies like online assignment and video lecture in the classrooms to help make the study material engaging, interactive and refreshing.

Apart from getting involved in studying through such innovative measures, students will understand the relevance and importance of the entire content, thereby showing more interest in studies and learning. The advantage of digital learning is also that it helps both introverted and extroverted students voice their views in the classroom. With the help of web tools like message boards, forums and online lectures, students who are shy and hesitant can be empowered by the teachers in classrooms. Upcoming trends in the education sector.

Technology is leading to a revolution in the way we learn. It is helping solve the problems of scale, quality of education, and learn ability of the student.

Teachers can now reach the full classroom through digital screens, enabling each child to get the same base content. Student engagement is higher as it combines various instructional styles.

And each student gets exposure to world- class education, something that was just not available in a chalk and talk approach. On the self-learning front, we believe that it is still nascent stage due to lot more school involvement of the child (typical student reaches home only at 2:30pm) and over reliance on neighborhood tuition center. However, trend here we are observing is desire to

have proper evaluation of the child by parents to help him in specific areas.

Therefore, I believe that new trend here will be personalized learning based on rocket science level evaluation state machine. Today, due to hi-tech network and multimedia, the education sector has emerged as a fast developing field.

Another prominent result of the use of technology in education is that there is an extensive change in the teaching and learning methods, styles, and content across many schools in India. Today, students use a unique form of technology called cloud technology wherein they can easily submit and review their assignment regularly.

When a school includes such facilities in a digital learning environment, the classroom becomes much more comfortable and welcoming to students.

With computers and digital elements in classrooms, students feel find studying more enjoyable. The aim of a teacher however should be to create such an atmosphere which makes every student want to study. Moreover, considering that the young students today are usually surrounded by computers, iPads and mobiles, bringing the same technology into the classrooms makes them feel easy and acquainted.

The evolution of distance education has always been mediated by the advances in technologies necessary to span the temporal-geographic distance between the learners, teachers and institutions. Hence most classifications of Distance Education have been based on the technologies used for delivery. A first generation was based on postal correspondence. Mass media of television, radio and film production defined a second generation. The third included the interactive technologies in audio, text, video web and immersive conferencing.

Fourth and fifth generations of learning technologies are less defined.

They introduce the concepts of intelligent databases, web 2.0 or semantic web concepts. Although they span several decades none of the technologies used in each generation excludes the use of the

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2 previous ones. Basically an expanded set of tools become available to the educational world. ―We have seen how different models of teaching and learning have evolved when the technological affordances and climate were right for them.

Cognitive-behaviorist pedagogical models arose in a technological environment that constrained communication to the pre-Web, one-to- one, and one-to-many modes; social–

constructivism flourished in a Web 1.0, many-to-many technological context; and connectives is at least partially a product of a networked, Web 2.0 world. And that

―No single generation has provided all the answers, and each has built on foundations provided by its predecessors rather than replacing the earlier prototype. Talking about the popularity of MOOCs in India, India is the second biggest market for MOOCs in the world, after the USA.

It is however expected that India in the coming years will supersede the USA. Our country has the second largest population in the world after China and is the third in terms of university enrollment worldwide. Respectively, the USA and China are first and second for university enrollment at the moment but this may soon change. MOOCs have opened the gateways for a lot of Indians in terms of being part of an educational revolution. It gives a great opportunity to avail high quality learning with the help of internet connectivity.

Two foremost reasons as to why MOOCs is a good idea in India is millions of Indians live in poverty and are unable to afford or gain access to a higher education and secondly there are more applicants than seats in the Indian Universities. MOOC, ―Massive Open Online Course‖ is a term coined in 2008 by George Siemens and Stephen Downs after carrying out the online course that succeeded a number of previously successful OOCs.

They represent an emerging methodology of online teaching. Their structure was inspired by the philosophy of connectives and the implementation requires conceptual changes in perspective from both tutors and learners.

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a web-based platform which provides unlimited number of students worldwide

with a chance of distance education with the best institutes in the world.

It was established back in 2008 and gained momentum in 2012 as a popular learning tool. Many MOOCs have communities that have interactive sessions and forums between the student, professors and Teaching Assistants along with the study/course material and video lectures.

1.1 What Is A MOOC

MOOCs stand for Massive Open Online Courses. So far, MOOCs can be characterized as follows: they are online courses with no formal entry requirement no participation limit are free of charge and do not earn credit.

1.2 How Does It Work

Think of it like an online platform where students and teachers come together and form an online pool of resources, which are readily available for you to utilize. You have the option of listening to lectures, downloading notes, contributing your own, and most importantly, sharing your point of view by communicating with your peers. Networking makes the process seem like a virtual online classroom.

1.3 Moocs In India and Abroad

There are various notable institutions, both non-profit and commercial, that offer these courses worldwide with the help of MOOC providers.

A few of these are listed below:-

 NPTEL (India): Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) offer online courses through this platform which require no registration and are free of cost.

 WizIQ (India and USA): IIT Delhi India offers this course through this platform which requires registration and fees to study courses offered by them.

 Open2Study: The headquarters of this platform for online courses is based out of Australia.

 Coursera: The headquarters of this platform for online courses is based out of USA.

 edX: The headquarters of this platform for online courses is based out of USA.

 udemy: The headquarters of this

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3 platform for online courses is based out of USA.

1.4 Coursera: The topmost provider of MOOCs

Online Courses being a norm now, there are a lot of organizations out there that offer these MOOC courses, Coursera being one of them. Coursera was launched 4 years ago with an intention to make courses available for students or anybody who wants to learn, by offering them online. It offers online courses ranging from the sciences, i.e. Physics and Biology to Humanities, Social Sciences and even Digital Marketing, Designing, etc. Coursera happens to be the top most providers of MOOCs with over 2000+ courses to offer.

1.5 MOOC Program in India

The University Grants Commission (UGC) along with the HRD (Human Resource Development) Ministry has launched the MOOC program in India for higher secondary, bachelors and masters degrees. This will cover a wide range of subjects that may or may not be taught in regular campus studies. A new portal for MOOCs named Study Webs of Active- Learning for Young Aspiring Minds‘, in short, SWAYAM, is said to present students with an opportunity to study anything from a list of 2000 courses out of which 200 are currently available for registration.

Audio-visual medium,

illustrations, research and case studies with self-assessment are few of the mediums chosen to approach the study of these courses. To provide further information on SWAYAM and MOOCs in general, Professor A.K. Bakshi, Chairman of the Centre for E-Learning, said, ―These online courses have been developed by a team of senior academicians and are expected to enhance the gross enrolment ratio in higher education without compromising with the quality. These courses will also help in bridging the digital divide in the country.‖

1.6 Future and Scope of MOOC

As it is being pointed out, MOOC cannot replace the traditional approach of classroom learning but it can be used as an alternative method to bridge the gap between various schools of learning.

It has been said however that MOOC has certain limitations which are listed below:

 Although digitalization is a must now, there are many nations that are unable to provide the basic necessities to enrol for MOOCs hence the spread of MOOCs are limited.

 It is not always certain that all MOOCs provide degrees, certificates and/or diplomas which limits the number of candidates that enroll for these courses as many companies ask for records of the education levels achieved and candidates are unable to provide them with the same.

 A student‘s life is confined to one room that has internet access and a laptop or a computer which allows little or no interaction with the outside world.

 Since MOOCs are web-based, there is no monitoring of the candidates/

students, which carries a risk of plagiarism or cheating.

1.7 Employment Opportunities Post Online Education

The new world of online education provides inexpensive education of college- level courses in many fields of study.

However, it is said that employers are not completely convinced with the level of education and coursework provided by the MOOCs unless the candidate is looking for jobs in the Technology or Computer Science sector.

Generally, it is said that MOOCs are focused on providing education that will improve skills in specific fields of study, mostly focused on technology, science and mathematics. Although some of the online courses provide records of completion of the courses, the online education concept is relatively new. It is found that students are ready for this new concept however many employers are still hesitant and skeptical about it.

To summarize, MOOCs are a great platform for higher education not just in India but all over the world but it comes with its pros and cons when it comes down to the future prospects of students that have passed out of MOOCs. Since the concept is new and has garnered praise recently, it can turn out to be one of the best concepts off late.

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4 1.8 For MOOCs – Issues for Discussion Besides the curiosity of the phenomenon an interesting question is obviously what will be the transformative power of MOOCs on learning processes, education and, of course, the higher education sector and its institutions.

1.9 Are Moocs A New Model?

One may question whether the distinction between xMOOCs and cMOOCs is as clear as suggested above. While innovation in learning and teaching may not be the immediate intention behind the launch of MOOCs by Ivy League universities and private companies, it is nevertheless hard to understand why innovative teaching as described above cannot be done, for example, through a Coursera course.

It is a fact that while MOOCs have been in existence for a while they did not receive much public attention until Ivy League universities and start-up companies became involved. Another observation is that the initial push for MOOCs did not come from the universities, but rather from individual (young) faculty members well acquainted with the technical and business world of information science and the media, who launched companies such as Coursera and Udacity outside of the university.

What is taking place at the moment is that university leadership and industry are seeking possibilities to get involved in distance and e- learning, but without having yet a clearly defined idea of the economic or educative model to be followed. As an initiative of Harvard and MIT, edX came a little later. However, the remark has been made that many of the big players – in spite of past unsuccessful forays into e-learning – have been experimenting with MOOCs (Daniel 2012) as they felt under pressure to act and did not want to lag behind the others.

Universities consider MOOCs for various reasons: lowering the cost of education; using existing resources more efficiently, e.g. by supplementing traditional classroom education with MOOCs (blended learning); offering traditional students more flexible learning opportunities; or reaching out to new learner groups, thus for enhancing visibility and for self-promotion. If more universities start getting involved, they will have to develop their own models for

providing an education to their students that is both relevant and sustainable.

Demand plays a role in terms of what and how people (want to) learn.

Experience from the software industry indicates that markets respond to powerful brands, and do not necessarily adopt the best solutions. Therefore, to what extent will MOOCs, if they continue, develop in line with the university mission, or be shaped by private enterprise? The latter development could also, to some extent, influence the demand. Coursera also offers courses provided by scholars from universities not listed as their partners (e.g. a professor from Leiden University).

Could MOOCs contribute to a new type of virtual teaching mobility and teaching cooperation among academics?

With the exception of edX (and probably Futurelearn) the predominant business models are not those of university consortia but as indicated above, business-driven.

Therefore to what extent is it the intention to promote collaboration and pooling resources between universities, as it has been sometimes suggested?

Questions of responsibility and quality assurance have not been addressed hitherto, although it may be that as long as credits are not awarded these issues need not rise to the top of the agenda.

2. WHY HAVE MOOCS BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN THE US, BUT NOT ELSEWHERE?

Interestingly, MOOCs have been mainly successful in the US, and so far very few universities in other parts of the world participate. It has been pointed out that one driver for MOOCs is to cut costs, given that the cost of higher education in the US is today five times higher than in the 1980s. Thus, this new approach could save money both for institutions (e.g.

regarding campus facilities, and probably also teaching staff), and also students, who may accept MOOCs in return for paying lower fees.

Future learn in the UK is, to our knowledge, the first MOOC platform established outside the US, and distinguishes itself by the fact that it is run by an open university, and recruits partner institutions at national level.

Given the developments indicated above there are many open questions

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5 concerning the potential interest in and take-up of MOOCs in Europe, in particular given the importance of public funding and different policies on tuition fees?

2.1 Language Diversity?

Another crucial issue is obviously language diversity. So far, MOOCs have been delivered in English, and interestingly, this has not been an issue of major debate, and has not raised doubt about the effectiveness of global knowledge dissemination. It would hardly be possible to deliver Coursera courses in several languages.

The current experience of the Khan Academy seems to indicate already the limits – as some of its coursework in maths and natural sciences has been translated in several languages – but not the social science coursework. The use of languages other than English might well depend also on the purpose and the target group of MOOCs: it could be imagined that MOOCs in widely spoken languages would become a means of internationalization.

2.2 Is this the end of Universities?

This is what some people believe: Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and author of ―The Innovative University, predicts ―wholesale bankruptcies‖ over the next decade among standard universities. Sebastian Thrun, a German computer science professor who left Stanford and founded Udacity predicts that in 50 years there will be only ten universities left in the world (Economist 22/12/2012). If they are to replace or supplement traditional learning provision, MOOCs would have to offer credits, and indeed, more and more institutions and organisations are contemplating this step.

2.3 Are MOOCs Paving the way for new Means of Knowledge Dissemination?

This appears to be the case to the extent that they are clearly used by a large number of people who find them beneficial. But the question is probably more about the degree to which they will supplement traditional education provision or even replace it.

Other questions concern the degree to which MOOCs will promote the wider use of e-learning, raise demand for

e-learning and also its public recognition.

Finally, will the development of MOOCs encourage institutions to provide more distance and blended learning opportunities?

2.4 Can any University have a MOOC?

 Will MOOCs in their present form come to constitute a specific model of education that can be made sustainable and be replicated by other universities, and if so, under which conditions:

 The popularity that these courses enjoy and the high number of enrolments are due at present to the fact that they are online, have no formal educational requirements, and are free of charge.

 The fact that they are offered by rather prominent and exclusive universities enhances their attractiveness.

 If funding were to come from student fees this might weaken the popularity of the approach, and result in much lower participation.

The introduction of tuition fees would also require institutions to award credits.

 Companies such as Google, Facebook, etc. have an interest in MOOCs, but will this interest persist in the future, and under what conditions? And would they partner with just any university? Would this result in further co modification of HE?

 The most recent edition of a regular US survey on online education reported that ―only 2.6 percent of higher education institutions currently have a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), another 9.4 percent report MOOCs are in the planning stages‖ (2012 Survey of Online Learning).

 This survey also mentions that academic leaders―remain unconvinced that MOOCs represent a sustainable method for offering online courses, but do believe that they provide an important means for institutions to learn about online pedagogy.

 This is underpinned by the fact that online learning has experienced a steady growth over the past decade, with more than 30% of HE students

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6 participating in at least one online course — despite the fact that the majority of institutions are not yet involved in the provision of online education. (2012 Survey of Online Learning)

 Obviously, the two most crucial issues at stake are currently the question of the business model, and the issue of awarding credits. But in whatever way MOOCs may develop in the long run, the fact that they currently get so much attention and cause controversial discussions gives hope that this might inspire a much broader debate on learning and teaching in higher education that seems long overdue.

3. UNIVERSITIES THAT PARTNERED UP WITH COURSERA

• Berklee College of Music

• Brown University

• California Institute of

• Technology

• Columbia University

• Duke University

• École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

• Emory University

• Georgia Institute of Technology

• Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Johns Hopkins University

• Mount Sinai School of Medicine

• Ohio State University

• Princeton University

• Rice University

• Stanford University

• The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

• The University of British Columbia

• University of California, Irvine

• University of California, San Francisco

• University of Edinburgh

• University of Florida

• University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign

• University of London

• International Programmed

• University of Maryland, College Park

• University of Melbourne

• University of Michigan

• University of Pennsylvania

• University of Pittsburgh

• University of Toronto

• University of Virginia

• University of Washington

• Vanderbilt University

• Wesleyan University REFERENCES

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