The Concept of Massive Open Online Courses - Case Study Example

?Unbundling/MOOC Case Study PREPARATION The concept of Massive Open Online s (MOOC) has been identified as one of the major and most innovativeonline learning models, which can be highly effective when delivering academic contents to the students in an all-inclusive manner, irrespective of their locations (Haggard, “The Maturing of the MOOC”). Objective. In line with the revolutionary changes of the modern educational environment, technology plays a pivotal role for the 21st century educators when delivering adequate course materials to the students. Therefore, the report tends to prepare an effective MOOC curriculum, from a point of view of a professor, in order to build an advanced technology based educational environment for the students. Expectations. The primary expectation of the course would be focused on enlightening students about its contents and the corresponding significance of each of the attributes. It will also aim at delivering emphasis on building a participatory environment for the students belonging from different geographical segments. Moreover, creating major opportunities for the students to obtain better understanding of various higher educational courses and enabling them to be more competent in the challenging business scenario will also remain two other major aims of the curriculum. Continuous development and intervention of technological aspects would also be highly considered in the program, which can ensure the delivery of adequate support by the MOOC model and enable the educators to efficiently deliver their course contents to the online students. Research and References. Considering the historical perspective, the revolution of the MOOC model has been widely accepted by the educators and learners all around the world as an effective medium of study. In this regard, Haggard stated that the present programming content in the MOOC model can be identified to be effective in the radical improvement of the education sector, facilitating the online learning process aided with the effective integration of advanced technological features. Accordingly, the historic developments of MOOC have been observed to enable learners to pursue multiple courses simultaneously, with greater efficiency and also facilitate them to rejuvenate their online innovation and creativity skills (Haggard, “The Maturing of the MOOC”). With regard to the theoretical perspective, the MOOC model has been termed as a wider concept of “legitimate peripheral participation”, which significantly ensures enabling each individual to achieve equal and appropriate educational support (McAuley, Stewart, Siemens, & Cormier, “The MOOC Model for Digital Practice”). Additionally, the process has also been identified to incorporate various essential and most advanced online media to encompass students from different geographical locations and play a more beneficial role in the 21st century educational paradigm. In this context, McAuley, Stewart, Siemens and Cormier have proactively represented the incorporation of different online media including social network, web blogs along with organizational sites, which are utilized by the educators at an extensive rate in order to efficiently deliver appropriate online course materials to the global students (McAuley, Stewart, Siemens, & Cormier, “The MOOC Model for Digital Practice”). DOCUMENTATION/ OBSERVATION Observations. Based the historical account presented above, the MOOC model has been identified to play a major role in enabling students to obtain greater advantage and opportunity. Such a support further helps students in availing different course materials with respect to their interests. Hence, it can be affirmed that the model tends to build effective environment for the global learners and facilitate them to improve their skills as well as competencies as suitable to develop a promising career in today’s intensely competitive world. Moreover, the intervention of the advanced technological features, such as use of social media and social and/or web blogs among others have also been witnessed to play a decisive role for the modern online learning service providers and also to enhance their quality of delivering educational curriculum (Brown, “2.03x Dynamics aims to improve learning on and off campus”). In order to achieve the desired objectives and expectations of the MOOC course, the intervention of the advanced online media will be incorporated. However, with the aim of attaining greater significance of the proposed model, the online learning program will be strategically focused on delivering web-based materials through the effective utilization of effective media sharing processes and developing social apps (Berge & Muilenburg 337-364). In this context, the online learning course will be focused on mitigating different academic queries and problems through online presentation process where the scholars or educators would provide online solutions to the students as per their requirements, irrespective of geographic or time barriers. The online social apps would further enable the students with easy access to the educators’ sites and be able to resolve their different academic queries. Therefore, the process would facilitate the professors to exceptionally provide academic materials than other conventional process of the MOOC model. Surprises. The intervention of media sharing and social web can be considered as few of the major technological aspects, which can ensure the development of a more advanced MOOC online learning environment. The technological attributes would also play a major role for both the students and the educators to mitigate different challenges through the deliverance of online solutions. Self-Rating of Success. In relation to the present day context, the MOOC model is widely accepted by the education industry facilitated through a greater intervention of the technology. The technological advancements integrated within this online course model have long been witnessed to provide extensive support to the globally connected online students, especially when considered the different higher education or technical learning programs. Therefore, the rapid development of the model can be considered as a noteworthy transformation of the online learning system, which is useful for delivering effective support to the students within a stipulated time period of the course. Moreover, the incorporation of media sharing and social web facilities would also increase the performance of the present online learning mechanism to attain substantial growth. With this concern, the present structure of MOOC model can be graded to encompass 80% of the overall distance learning programs offered by the educational institutions to the students all around the world. REFLECTION/CRITICAL THINKING When designing the course as a professor, I implemented online problem solving education process. As per my observation, the program was considerably effective to accomplish the desired objectives of delivering quality academic solutions to the global students irrespective of the geographic and time barriers with the aid of numerous scholar based information and all-inclusive study materials to the students. The involvement of social media, media sharing and social web based technological aspects also aided me to mitigate different challenges faced by the students located in diverse geographical locations and belonging from various educational background (Mehaffy, “Challenge and Change”). However, when applying the MOOC model, I also faced different challenges in order to ensure successful deliverance of distance learning courses to the students. In this regard, few of the major challenges that imposed negative impacts on my designed curriculum were the different capabilities of the students to use the online software proficiently as well as their differing linguistic skills, which apparently affected their communication skills. Additionally, non-flexibility in the educational model design applied by me also raised few structural issues in the course delivery procedure. Funding and cost along with business processes of the institutions were also accountable as major challenges that I had to face when applying the course. In this context, I was able to identify that the deficiency associated with inadequate technology infrastructure along with lack of technology based knowledge of the educators imposed greater difficulties in accomplishing the ultimate goals of the MOOC model. The deliverance of online solutions associated with higher educational contents as also identified to create significant challenges for the MOOC model when applying it as an online academic course (Mehaffy, “Challenge and Change”). In order to successfully address the existing problem relating to the deliverance of higher education content to the global students, I therefore have decided to incorporate an advanced media sharing technology that can enable me to mitigate the above mentioned academic challenges. In this context, the media sharing tool has enabled both scholars and students to empirically discuss the prevailed academic issues and facilitate them to enhance the online learning services. Moreover, the continuous training and development process shall also enable me to implement the process more efficiently by mitigating the technology deficiency challenges faced in the course. As per my understanding, the model can be accepted as an open as well as invitational approach that can be obtained by any individual through an online education process. The technological aspects in this model play a pivotal role by enabling globally diversified learners to avail equal learning materials and support. Works Cited Berge, Zane. L. & Lin Muilenburg. Handbook of Mobile Education. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2013. Print. Brown, M. “2.03x Dynamics Aims to Improve Learning on and Off Campus.” MIT News, 2013. Web. 5 Oct. 2013. Haggard, “The Maturing of the MOOC.” BIS Research Paper Number 130 (2013): 1-123. Print. McAuley, Alexander, Bonnie Stewart, George Siemens, & Cormier Dave. “The MOOC Model for Digital Practice.” Massive Open Online Courses Digital Ways of Knowing and Learning (2010): 1-63. Print. Mehaffy, George, L. “Challenge and Change.” Articles, 2012. Web. 5 Oct. 2013. Read More