I mentioned yesterday that creating a study group (physical or virtual) out of the enrollee pool of a MOOC class (even a huge one) is tough to pull off. But that might just be because by the time a class has started, it’s too late to create a learning community to take the course together. […]
MOOC-ing Together
Ask a MOOC champion or critic what’s most lacking in a massive open online course and you’ll likely get some variant on “interaction with others.” Small classrooms where students get to build relationships with teachers clearly provide something a large-scale online experience cannot (and even small online classes struggle to create intimate teacher-to-student bonds). I […]
Of MOOCs and Typos and Broken Links
I realize I’m kicking a gift horse in the teeth (not to mention mixing metaphors in mid-stream), but would it be too much trouble to release online courses free of the typographical errors and other mistakes that professors wouldn’t tolerate coming from their students? I appreciate that many MOOCs are put together quickly by teams […]
The Magic of the Course
A couple of posts back, I mentioned that I wanted to look at what was so special about the structure and format of a course in comparison to other methods one could use to learn the same subject. For example, one could learn about something by listening to a podcast, which provides instruction similar to […]
MOOCs and Entrepreneurship – Running the Numbers
For my 100th post at Degree of Freedom, I wanted to look at some numbers that can be used (or at least considered) by those thinking about trying their hand at some form of entrepreneurship connected to the rapidly expanding momentum of free learning. When I ran my own business oh so many years ago, […]