MOOCs: a breath of fresh air, albeit the same air

A Secretary of State for Education in the US likened Education to a giant blob. No matter what you did to to change the blob, it always healed up or reformed back into its original shape. Are MOOCs puncturing or reshaping the blob? Or are they just orbiting the blob?

Forces from the outside world, namely technology and hard economics are putting pressure on the blob and MOOCs are, potentially, blob busters. Their potency comes from the fact that they’ve burst open the limitations of old teaching methods and reach out with alternatives that are part of the more general open culture of the web.

MOOCs appropriate MOOPs

Nothing’s new with MOOCs. Massive Open Online Pedagogies (MOOPs), such as short videos, search, wikis, quizzes, forums, collaborative groups, online problems, online assignments, peer learning and peer assessment have all been around for some time and are now being absorbed into MOOCs. I haven’t found a single brand-new, online pedagogic technique in any MOOC. This is neither a criticism nor a problem. The iPhone is a cluster of existing technologies where the sum is greater than the parts. Indeed, Brian Arthur’s in The Nature of Technology thinks that this is an essential feature of technology, the coalescence of existing technologies to create something exciting and new.

MOOCs provide an ideal sandbox for reflection, debate, research, experimentation, outreach and real action on pedagogy, on a scale we’ve never seen before. Every facet of learning is being re-examined and in some cases re-evaluated.

So what sort of pedagogies have been appropriated into MOOCs? Here’s just seven MOOPs (Massive Open Online Pedagogy) that have been used in MOOCs:

MOOP 1 – Short videos

Recorded lectures are still relatively rare, accounting for a tiny fraction of those delivered, but they’ve had a profound pedagogic effect. A soon as they took off the digital genie was out of the lecture hall. The evidence is clear, students want, use, like and benefit from them. The unrecorded, 1 hour lecture (only an hour as the Babylonians had a sexidecimal number system) remains the main obstacle to pedagogic progress in HE. It puts a block on the four main evidence-based features of learning; attention, active learning, adequate feedback and spaced practice. MOOCs use recorded lectures/videos extensively.

YouTube, used by hundreds of millions, has had a profound effect on MOOCs,proving that less is often more as was video sequences long inserted or made available in online learning courses. TED, watched by millions, reinforced the need to make video lectures focused, short, with injected passion and less reliance on PowerPoint. MOOCs quickly learnt this lesson. Then we had the Khan Academy, a huge influence on MOOCs, who effectively removed the lecturer from the screen to focus on the content with narration and, in this case hand-drawn maths. This works because, in maths, you need to work semantic and episodic memory. This pedagogic approach was enthusiastically adopted by Sebastian Thrun at Udacity.

MOOP 2 – Content and the humble hyperlink

Under this you have documents, reading lists, links and so on that use the hyperlink, to give students access to content. The humble hyperlink is the hero of online pedagogy, the simple idea that knowledge can be linked and made accessible by a simple click. Long before MOOCs, the hyperlink had been the mainstay for interactivity. It allowed the expansion of, drilling into or jumping across content, thereby personalising learning. This is the glue that holds the course content together.

MOOP 3 – Online assessment

Online formative and summative assessment, always a stalwart of online learning, became the norm in MOOCs. Conditional branching also allowed different routes to be taken, remedial loops presented and simulations to be constructed, all based on performance. Given the very large numbers of students and paucity of teacher bandwidth, this made sense. Students had to get software-based feedback, if large numbers of students were to progress through the course.

MOOP 4 – Peer learning

Forums and chat are among the oldest Massive Open Online Pedagogies, used since the very inception of the web. In MOOCs, forums and other software assisted forms of peer learning genuinely seem to aid learning. Students do like the experience of getting help and encouragement from other students. Peer learning is scalable. Indeed, it is a pedagogy that benefits from scale. The more learners the better and more efficient peer matching and learning can be. Peer learning also encourages critical thinking, peers are often closer to the problems than teachers with bonding a wonderful side effect. An often forgotten benefit is that teaching is also a powerful way to learn. Above all, we know from the work of Mazur and many others, that it increases learning, retention and attainment. Arora, Peerwise and many others have been used for years in sophisticated, peer learning. In practice, by contract, peer learning is still in its infancy in MOOCs. Coursera’s forums are often described as chaotic and confusing. However, MOOCs are bringing peer learning to the attention of many, encouraging its use.

MOOP 5 – Peer assessment

More controversially, peer assessment in terms of comments, judgements and even marks, are given y peers. Peermark and others have been doing this for some time. It gets round the problem of scaling up students numbers while relying on a small number of academics. The real question is what’s lost in the process of scaling. To be fair, many who have seen this in action (and it’s early days) think it is reasonable and pretty fair. Participants in MOOCs are supportive and keen to be as objective as possible. It’s not as if traditional assessment in HE is in any way efficient or even truly objective. Formative assessment is often scarce, very light and late. It is not uncommon to wait weeks for an essay to be marked and returned. This makes MOOC peer assessment seem like a quantum leap.

MOOP 6 – LMS/LCMs/VLE/CRM functionality

Although they would be loathed to admit it, many MOOCs run light LMS/LCMS/VLE/CRM  structures for registration, email, comms, assignments, peer learning, peer assessment, handling large amounts of tracked data and so on. MOOCs are massive and therefore need to be managed by scalable software. None of this is new, as typical LMSs/LMCSs/VLEs have long coped with copious amounts of learners, their management and data.

MOOP 7 - Social media

Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ is a MOOP used by hundreds of millions, so it is natural that they would incorporated into, or at least used parasitically, by MOOCs. In fact, most MOOCs go nowhere near social media but those that do tend to simply have a Facebook page or twitter hashtag and feed. MOOCs are not sophisticated in terms of porosity to outside sources and more sophisticated uses of social media.

MOOCs are aggregated MOOPs

This is just one part of a general move towards the online democritisation, decentralisation and disintermediation of Higher Education. In truth, this had already started with the annihilation of older offline pedagogies with newer Massive Open Online Pedagogies (MOOPs). Most of the components in MOOCs merely reuse what was already established on the web – search (Google), hyperlinks, short videos (YouTube, TED, Khan Academy etc), wikis (Wikipedia, Wikispaces etc), communication (email, chat, forums etc.), collaboration (social media), peer learning, LMS/CRM (mass email and comms management etc.).

MOOCs are not really a single innovation, as all MOOCs are not created equal – they’re all-sorts. Neither are they innovative in terms of pedagogy, as they are invariably assemblages of previously existing online pedagogies. MOOCs assemble different existing MOOP component, and it’s really an. umbrella term for large online courses, and those have been around for a long time. What’s important is that it is a leap forward compared to many high volume, lecture-led, low feedback, low contact courses, that are all too common in Higher Education.

Nothing new under the sun

Ecclesiastes, that most idiosyncratic book of the bible, says ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ and so it is with MOOCs. We have yet to see the serious use of high-end, adaptive techniques, AI, different species of high-end simulation, gaming and the many more adventurous forms of online learning experiences. The use of peer learning has been patchy and the use of social media has been peripheral. To be fair we can already see that the investment and commitment is there to see MOOCs evolve and start to push the pedagogic boundaries. They are a breath of fresh air, albeit the same air.

Bibliography

Arthur, W. B. (2009). The nature of technology: What it is and how it evolves. New York: Free Press.

Mazur, E. (1997). Peer instruction: A user's manual. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall.

Google Glass: 7 amazing uses in learning

Google Glass is due to be launched in 2013 and like all innovations will take time to find its feet. Much is made of smartphones and tablets in mobile learning but these are still clumsy ‘hand-held’ devices. Wearable technology, that is simply there in line of sight, may finally have arrived. We know that it will be both voice and finger activated with bone vibration technology for hearing and allow us to learn in the following ways:

1. Record video & pictures

Record a lecture, presentation, slide, conversation, bits of TV or browsing the web. This could be a sort of Evernote function through video, audio and images. This habitual capture of relevant learning experiences is now a key method of informal learning. Note that the prototype also promises a ‘search pictures’ function.

2. Learn by doing

Learning by doing will be eminently possible using playback video, audio, text and images. Initially one can learn skills through exemplar video (see video as MOOP (Massive Online Open Pedagogy)). At the next level a step-by-step walk-through as you perform the task. At yet another level you can perform and video the task for assessment. This will be a boon to those learning vocational and practical skills.

3. Search

Search was the first major MOOP (see search as MOOP). With search you have unparalleled access to the hyperlinked (see hyperlink as MOOP) world of knowledge. It is this ability to simply call up what you need at the very moment you look at or do something that can really enhance experience.

4. Translate

We have long known that language learning is slow and ponderous in the classroom and that it needs immersion, regular practice and reinforcement. Presenting common phrases and vocabulary in context and through spaced practice is one idea. More powerful uses of language could be encouraged through task-based learning, with support on the Google Glass display.

5. Use Google Now

As an extension of Google Search, Google Now enables personalised search and retrieval on cards that are be tailored to your personal learning needs, based on repeated use . It uses Knowledge Graph to analyse meanings and connections that make the presentation of learning material more relevant in terms of pre-requisites and adaptive learning.

6. Communication & collaboration

First, you can communicate with messages. Google Glass also comes with Google Hangout, promising higher levels of interaction with your tutor, teacher, trainer or instructor or other learners in collaborative learning. More specifically, for practical, vocational learning, you can imagine being ‘talked through’ an event or get feedback on a performed action.

7. Reinforcement

Edited down Google Now cards could then be retrieved and used to reinforce learning to shove it from short to long term memory. We may finally have the solution to that age old problem – the forgetting curve. Specific applications could take learner-generated cues from a specific course, lecture or presentation, and present them at spaced intervals.

Powerful mobile pedagogies

This is a pretty powerful set of seven mobile pedagogies. Each and every one has huge learning potential. This goes well beyond the plethora of other basic information applications, such as getting directions, weather, news etc. So, if they can overcome the issue of social adoption, we could be on to something.
Ergonomics
This is the first move to technology that simply taps directly into the senses. You can see the display at any time, You can say things and it will listen and react. You can hear things directly. You can touch to control. With its camera it is always pointing where you are looking - another interface leap. It is the truly invisible in the sense that it is not visible to the wearer. I'm almost never aware of the fact that I'm wearing glasses. This is what makes it special and more interesting than the much talked about iWatch. It's invisibility is its primary virtue. Expect an initial slew of GPS games that you can play in real locations. If you want to see how this could work conceptually, watch this Battlefield game.
However, it does have to content with its high visibility to others. Whether it will become cool or calamitous depends on whether they can tap into the Ray Ban, or other style brands, to overcome its Google-ass type quality. In time, and Google says this is merely the first iteration, we know that it will become smaller and even more invisible, perhaps totally invisible as the battery, electronics and camera are hidden entirely within a normal sized frame.
As you don't need to put it in your pocket or bag or on the table, it has the advantage of being less prone to loss or theft, although we can quickly expect a few grab and run incidents. This is no small advantage.

Conclusion

Expectations for Google Glass are riding high. Some expect this to be the product that Apple wishes it had invented, establishing Google as the new post-Jobs Apple. Whatever the truth, it is a ground-breaking product with enormous potential. It promises to put mobile learning on the map, as it is an always there, hands free device that plays to the idea that learning needs to be part of one’s everyday life and reinforced through habit and spaced practice. For a good review of the product and to see it being used, watch this video.

Google: first MOOP (Massive Online Open Pedagogy)

Seek and you will find

As a kid I never imagined, when watching Star Trek, that I really would have a little device on which I could ask any question, and it would almost certainly give me a meaningful answer. Science fiction came true and I have one next to me now and its main tool is Google search. Google search is probably the most profound pedagogic shift in the history of learning, not a game changer but a previously unimaginable shift towards universal access to anything, anytime from anywhere.

Montessori kids

Brin was born in Russia and educated in the US, Page is from Michigan. Like Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Mahatma Gandhi, Sigmund Freud, Buckminster Fuller, Leo Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell, Jean Piaget and Hilary and Bill Clinton before them, they both attended Montessori schools. Indeed, they both credit their Montessori education for much of their success. It was the Montessori experience, they claim, that made them self-directed, allowing them to think for themselves and pursue their real interests.

They only met in 1995, at Stanford, yet their business, Google, famously based on a spelling error (Google should have been Googol), has become one of the most significant global businesses of our times. The company floated in 2004 and is run as a triumvirate of Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergei Brin.

Most potent, pedagogic, productivity tool ever

As the world’s most successful search engine it has become an indispensable tool for learning and research. It’s a way of learning that has touched almost everyone in the developed and increasingly developing world. Search has transformed the way we search for information and has changed our very relationship with knowledge, making a significant contribution to the very idea of what needs to be learnt and newer. It is, arguably, the single most powerful, pedagogic, productivity tool we have ever seen.

Google – game changer in learning

Google's mission is to ‘organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful’. Specialist searching of text, images, video, books, blogs, academic papers, news, and maps, has given the ordinary user unparalleled access to knowledge stored across different media.

Their mathematical approach to search problems at Stanford led to a search engine that ranked sites by popularity. In addition, the more we search, the greater the data Google has and the better their search engine becomes. As their scalable model looked at links, so the larger the web became the better their engine became.

It is the speed and efficiency of such search that has accelerated our ability as learners to identify relevant knowledge. Learners of all ages and abilities see the web as a useful source of knowledge. Of course, Google also relies on knowledge bases such as Wikipedia, Journals and many other sources to deliver content.

Researchers, from schoolchildren with projects to advanced researchers in educational institutions, now find Google an indispensable tool. As online access to research Journals and scholarly knowledge bases increases, so search has become an indispensable tool.

Google tools and learning

Google Education provides a rack of useful tools for education. Thie rapprocah is to provide productivity tools, not content. Gmail has given users a free email service with substantial amounts of storage. Google Calendar provides individual and shared calendars. Google docs, shared documents. Google+ collaboration and hangouts. Google translate for languages. Google Scholar is even more precise in its intention.

Google Earth and Google Maps are astonishing tools for learning and research. Blogger, owned by Google, provides free blogging software to tens of millions of bloggers. YouTube is the world’s greatest, searchable repository for videos, now a mainstream source of content for learning. These promise to put even more power in the hands of learners, freeing us from the traditional limitations of paper-based libraries and physical ‘places’ of learning.

Outsourced memory

When most knowledge is easily searchable the need to learn and memorise knowledge starts to recede. Indeed, in the corporate world, it is clear that modern managers rely less on knowledge and more on skills. Memory is, in a sense, outsourced, placing less of an emphasis on rote learning and memorisation.

Many argue that this is also true of schooling, where the traditional model has been rote learning and memorisation, as opposed to critical thinking and other skills. Teaching students how to search may be as powerful a skill, as teaching them to read and write. Indeed, Google have a free course that does just that.

Google may also have altered our general idea of what constitutes knowledge. You have to learn to see knowledge as varying in quality and certainty, distinguish different sources in terms of their reliability. On the other hand, some suggest Google search has made us fickle, lazy and fragmented in our learning.

Digital Maoism

Google has its detractors. Jared Lanier warns against ‘digital Maoism’ aided and abetted by Google, that may take the wisdom of the crown and turn us all into slavish followers or tribal groups. The subterfuge is that Google monetises your search data and is “selling people [their advertiser-targetable personal identities, buying habits, etc.] back to themselves“. He goes further in his latest book The Fate of Power and the Future of Dignity claiming that the financial crash and future economy may be undermined by techno-utopianism, where we unwittingly submit to becoming become advertising fodder. These are interesting arguments and well worth noting but they tend to ignore the simple pay-off, that I gain more personally than I risk. Most people seem happy to give up their search data to get such a fee, powerful and useful product in return.

Googling the future

Google are so ambitious and have so many projects on the go that it is difficult to predict where they are heading. Now that they have tentacles into every online and offline person, organisation and place on the planet, including the planet itself, it seems likely that they will move beyond search through an expanding suite of tools to become your personal assistant for almost everything you want in life – knowledge, shopping, jobs…. However, it’s hard to see where Google X’s projects, supervised by Brin, such as the driverless car and Google Glass fit in.

Let’s not forget that Google gave us the Android mobile operating system, a welcome alternative to the closed world of Apple and a strategy one that seems to be paying off. Apple’s walled world is at odds with Google’s open world and in the long term my money’s on Google. Look out for Android games consoles, such as the Ouya. Android’s important as it eats into the OS market with phones, tablets and laptops like the Chromebook.

Conclusion

Page and Brin have created a toolset that has already revolutionised access to knowledge. Their organisation continues to revolutionise learning and to ‘organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful’. The scale of this task is enormous and on-going. It is truly an example of technology making a huge impact on the nature, future and efficacy of learning, a truly momentus pedagogic force. Search as a Massive Open Online Pedagogy (MOOP) is something that is was around before MOOCs and will be around long after MOOCs are gone. It’s long-term effect on learning is irreversible and profound.