For instance, according to Sanjay Sarma, Director of MITx and MIT’s Office of Digital Learning, the MITx platform and content had over 1200 users within MIT in 2013, making it one of the most important online tools students use while attending the school as residents.

And if you look at the one of the major controversies resulting from MOOCs (the revolt of the philosophy department at San Jose State over the licensing of edX content), that debate was over what the availability of online materials (such as the MOOC version of Michael Sandel’s Justice class) would mean for existing college programs led by existing teaching staff.

The notion of the flipped classroom, one in which lectures become something students do in their dorm rooms via online video while the classroom becomes the place where discussion, projects and other interactive or individualized learning takes place, undergirds most discussion of MOOCs within the university.

For instance, during a panel discussion on MOOCs during this week’s LINC conference, several of the speakers used similar slides that included paintings and woodcuts of medieval classrooms where sages lectured from the stage in much the same way professors do today (albeit without the beards and turbans).  And the message accompanying these images was that, unlike previous technological breakthroughs (such as the blackboard), online tools provide the means to truly change the dynamic of teaching for the first time in a thousand years.

One of the challenges to this analysis is that while technology allows us to take one part of the classroom (lectures) and move them from the classroom to the browser, it is still unclear exactly what is supposed to take place when students gather in the rooms where those lectures formerly took place.

It’s all well and good to say that the classroom will be transformed from a place where interacting and doing replaces listening and note taking.  But where are these wonderful new interactive classroom projects supposed to come from?  And are professors really ready to dedicate closer to 100% of time in class to meaningful discussion (especially for bigger classes that already supplement large lectures with smaller discussion groups)?

I previously mentioned one discipline (technology) that’s utilized the flipped classroom model for years.  In theory, the availability of tools that can teach and assess rote skills remotely should free teachers to focus on individualized practice or teach complex concepts when kids get to class.  But as schools eye areas to trim, it’s unclear which will come first: the transformation of the technology class into something new and invaluable (perhaps becoming the place where vital skills like Information Literacy and critical thinking are taught) or the termination of departments whose traditional subject is already being taught online.

Just as the MOOC phenomenon is showing us the holes that need to be plugged if these and other online learning tools can truly serve as an alternative to brick-and-mortar classes (quality evaluation, meaningful discussion, credit), the integration of MOOCs (or MOOC components) into those physical classrooms highlights things that are still needed if the flipped classroom is ever to move from being the latest teaching fad to the cornerstone of a new mainstream teaching model.

The post MOOCs Inside the Classroom appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

This will serve as the backdrop for the theme of the week which will be how MOOCs et al are being implemented within institutions (a new direction for commentary and analysis at this which has largely focused on free learning as an alternative to traditional college education).  And given that I spent last night’s reception in the presence of educators from India, Ireland and Siberia, this week’s discussion will likely have an international flavor that’s long overdue.

Also, because of this week’s schedule (and because I’m finishing up but have not yet finished the last set of courses that will complete my sophomore year), there will be no Degree of Freedom news this week.  But the course reviews at the heart of that newsletter will kick into high gear starting next week as sophomore year finishes up and I finally get off the pot and make some final decisions as to what courses will be selected for the July through September junior year slot.

So ciao for now.

The post Couple of Announcements appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

Students enrolled in this edX class will recognize Professor Greg Nagy and his colleagues Leonard Muellner, Claudia Filos and Jeff Emanuel, a subset of a wider team of scholars and professionals behind Greek Heroes (or HeroesX as the team likes to call it) who were kind enough to participate in a discussion of what goes into a successful MOOC course.

(Note: Towards the end of the interview, we discuss the class’ first assessment question which you can see towards the end of this earlier piece on MOOC testing.)

The post Interview with the edX/HarvardX Greek Hero MOOC Team appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

After all, institutions around the world are paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to put their courses up on the web for free.  Companies like Coursera, edX and Udacity (and the investors and institutions behind them) are pouring millions into perfecting the platforms for online course delivery. And the people who work there are putting in startup hours to get “product” (i.e. high-quality college level courses) out the door.

Speaking of hours, think for a minute about the time professors are putting into bringing us the best of their work while also juggling their other teaching and research responsibilities.

Given all this, are critiques of the limitations in MOOC testing (for example) or speculation about the speculative nature of MOOConomics a form of nitpicking or an act of tough love?

Unsurprisingly, I would claim the latter.  And not just because this improvement in assessment or that change in approach to community building might improve the experience I and fellow learners are having right now.

For the MOOC experiment itself might rise or fall based on how quickly it can capitalize on its successes, improve on the shortcomings those success have exposed, and discover ways to make MOOCs financially viable over the long term.

But like most transformative experiments, success in one area creates challenges in another.  For example, one of the most significant things to change over the last 12-24 months has been the attitude of colleges and universities towards sharing their educational resources.

Whereas previously such sharing might be done on a limited basis, MOOCs have engendered a “give-your-best-stuff-away-for-free-and-figure-out-how-you’ll-make-money-later” behavior pattern across the educational multi-verse, coupled with a sense of urgency to climb Onboard NOW!!!  And (at least for the time being) this dynamic has succeeded in overwhelming the natural tendency of prestige colleges and universities to look to their own institutional needs first, treat other campuses as rivals, and hold tight to their assets.

With more and more campuses demonstrating this devotion to free learning, such sharing creates a new cultural norm which (like the Open Software Movement) is likely to persist even if the current MOOC players expand, contract or transform.  But this cultural change also makes it difficult to see where the money will come from to ensure next round of courses can be created and shared for free.

In business, there are two approaches one can take when revenue does not meet expectations: cutting corners and taking chances.

Cutting corners usually involves slashing bottom line expenses to make up for top line losses while hunkering down in hope that the good old days will return again if you can just hold out long enough (a strategy that didn’t work out so well for WordPefect Corporation or the Ottoman Empire).

But taking chances means staring reality in the face, eliminating old products or business models that no longer make sense, and creating new things for a new world that leverage resources and market position (think Apple and IBM).

Extending this analogy to free learning, we need to be putting time and effort into making MOOCs so good and so popular that they become an indispensible part of the educational landscape.  For once that happens, financial stability will likely follow (even if success doesn’t end up being measured in the number of Internet billionaires created).

And so I and others who have been smitten by the free learning bug will continue to share our thoughts, our passion and – yes – our critiques on a project we hope to see succeed and expand beyond even its creators’ wildest dreams.

The post MOOCs – How Far We’ve Come appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

That said, their reverse chronological nature means that interesting content can quickly get buried as it gets pushed further and further into the past.

This was brought home to me when an older post attracted an interesting comment by Paul Morris, an independent learner from the UK who got his degrees via Britain’s Open University system that’s been providing access to accredited free learning for years.

As Paul describes, under the Open University system progress is measured in hours with the expectation that a full-year course (the equivalent of two full-semester courses in an American college system) are based on 30 weeks of work with an expected commitment of fifteen hours of effort per week.   Doing the math, this would bring a single semester-length course in at over 200 hours of expected study.

The use of time as a yardstick (or meter stick in this case) of rigor/demand on students seems reasonable.  Although, if you accept this method of measurement, this means that almost every MOOC course (certainly the ones I’ve taken so far – never mind my non-MOOC classes) would fall far short of what Open University would consider a full semester worth of learning.

Now there are other means to lay claim to having completed a college-level class such as outcomes.

My colleague and doppelganger Scott Young, for example, decided that his ability to successfully complete the same exam taken by MIT students at the end of a course (with all tests taken under the same conditions of MITers sitting in a proctored classroom) would count as passing a full-semester class. Which means that regardless of how many hours it took him to learn the material required to pass such exams, tests rather than hours of work would be his method for assigning himself credit.

Scott’s system is far from unique, especially if you look at major industries such as IT where success is based on taking rigorous, validated certification exams where passing the test is the measure of progress, rather than the number of hours required to master the material needed to sit the exam.

For my Degree of Freedom project, I’ve been using a couple of means to declare a semester-length course completed.  One is straightforward: if I do all the work associated with an online class (such as a MOOC that includes lectures, reading, homework, quizzes and other assignment) this “counts” as having finished one of the classes in my 32-course degree lineup.

But the other measure is the more amorphous concept of learning, i.e., did I learn what I would have if I took a comparable course within a brick-and-mortar university setting?

Since I already have a college degree, I’ve got a point of comparison between the amount I remember learning in a traditional college class vs. what I’m getting out of a MOOC or other free-learning experience.  And for classes like Coursera’s Think Again (a logic course I can compare to one I took on the same subject years ago when I attended university), it’s pretty clear to me that the amount one learns if you put the time into completing all of the material in that MOOC course was the same as what I learned in a comparable classroom course taken previously.

Now there are some cases where the material covered in an online class seems lighter than what I would expect from a traditional full-semester one.  But I also recall classes I took in college that were decidedly easier (and less demanding of my time) than others.

Also, as I’ve noted a number of times before, the means of measuring learning (such as automatically graded quizzes and peer-graded essays) within a MOOC course certainly feel like less than what students have to do when enrolled in a traditional university program.

I suppose if you showed up at my door this morning demanding I take a challenging final exam or write a closed-book essay on one of the subjects I studied during my freshman year, I would probably struggle with that assignment.

But if I was given time to prepare (by letting me know what to expect and  giving me time to study), I suspect I would do much better (just as any sophomore would have a better chance of success if given time to get ready for a test on a subject he or she studied during their freshman year).

More importantly, the courses I’ve been taking have exposed me to new ways of thinking meaning that if I was given some sort of open book assignment to demonstrate my learning, I would have the knowledge and experience to succeed in demonstrating that a class did indeed deliver the goods.

This analysis brings up a host of issues related to what students are accomplishing regardless of where their studies are taking place.  For today’s students all have access to far more information and resources than did any of us who went to college before the Internet age.  Which means that recall (once the key metric for success in instruments like closed-book exams) are less important than background knowledge coupled with the ability to perform research, think critically and synthesize material into something original and thoughtful.

So might we be better off focusing on MOOCs and other tools that will teach students these critical skills?  Or perhaps we should be preparing students at a younger age to perform research, think critically and write well since those who have a grounding in these vital skills are the ones most likely to succeed, regardless of where or how their learning take place.

The post Measuring MOOC Learning appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

The focal message of that posting is to do what it takes to get the most out of MOOC assignments: pace yourself for maximum absorption of material, do as many assignments as you can (even ones that don’t necessarily contribute to your grade), only submit work you’d be proud to hand to your professor in a face-to-face classroom, etc.

I also offhandedly mentioned one of my homework flubs (mistaking AM and PM and thus missing the chance to submit a peer-reviewed essay for my Modernism class by the deadline).  And this brings up some additional practical (including technical) issues to consider when dealing with the systems supporting the submission of quizzes, essays and other MOOCwork.

The few times I’ve had to search out or interact with tech support for one of my MOOC classes, I’ve gotten what I need in a timely fashion.  But having run a software firm in the past (an online testing company as it happens, which had to deal with many of the same technical issues students run into working on MOOC platforms), it’s generally better to avoid common errors, rather than try to fix a problem after the fact.

With that in mind, here are some further recommendations to keep in mind:

Deadlines

In addition to paying careful attention to deadlines (to avoid the AM/PM issue I ran into), you should avoid taking quizzes or submitting material to a grading system at the last minute.

Given human nature, it’s likely that any assignment-related components of a MOOC platform will be getting hit the most right at the deadline.   And given the nature of technology, if something is going to fall over, it will be at the point where the system is under maximum pressure.

Now these systems are pretty robust (I’ve not run into any platform problems so far), but I have lost wireless close to a deadline which is not an experience anyone wants to go through.  So getting your work in a day or two in advance is highly recommended.

Only Use Supported Configurations

Each MOOC provider includes lists of supported browsers and other technical details regarding what software you should and shouldn’t use when interacting with their platform.

Given that these platforms are modular, it’s possible that you won’t run into issues doing some things (like watching video lectures) on an unsupported browser, but that other platform components (such as quizzing systems) will give you problems if you don’t have the right hardware and software.

So before you start your first class, check the tech specs and make sure you’re not doing something that might cause you agita in the future.

Follow Directions

Don’t be one of those poor souls who hit the Save button thinking that they’ve submitted their work for grading, only to discover later that there’s a separate Submit button for alerting the system that you’re ready to have your work evaluated.

And remember that even if companies like Coursera provide support to help you with technical problems, there’s not a lot they can do for you to undo your own blunders (such as my AM/PM fiasco, the accidental submission of the wrong assignment, or missing a deadline due to confusion over Save and Submit, for example).

So far, deadlines have never been so pressing that there has not been time to read through all of the instructions associated with an assignment from beginning to end, a practice I highly recommend to make sure you don’t get penalized for accidents that could have easily been avoided.

Document Your Submissions

A lot of these recommendations are built off of input from the Coursera tech team (meaning they’re issues you can assume affect a reasonable numbers of MOOC students).  And they also recommended taking a screen shot of the screen that indicates an assignment has been successfully submitted to act as a paper trail in case you run into problems later.

Summing up, it’s no mean feat to create technology that allows tens or hundreds of thousands of students to interact with all of the components of an online course (lectures, quizzes, etc.).  But big, complex systems are big and complex.  And given that most tech support problems can be traced back to user error, it’s best to take the few simple steps needed to ensure that such errors don’t interfere with your success in any of your MOOC classes.

It’s come time to hit the Submit button on my blogging software (as opposed to Save).  So ciao for now.

The post MOOC Homework – Tech Talk appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

A recent analogy specific to MOOCs has to do with the textbook industry which, like online learning, was initially greeted as a threat to the professorate.  After all, if the expertise of the greatest teachers in a field were all collected into a single curated volume, then what was left for the remaining teachers to do other than tell students to read those books?

The growth of a multi-billion dollar textbook industry alongside an even huger college industry demonstrated that more and better material only led to more and better teaching.  But another industry – computers – potentially provides a better analogy to free learning.

After all, the history of computing has been a history of disruption when market leaders chartering ocean liners for their annual events one year became fire sale properties the next.  And this disruption has followed a certain pattern whereby a new innovation (such as microcomputers) are not sold to traditional computer buyers (like large companies looking for bigger and more powerful machines) but instead move into new markets (like home and small-business users) where they eventually evolve to conquer the industry.

This pattern of disruption was applied to education in Clayton Christensen, Curtis Johnson and Michael Horn’s Disrupting Class which talks about how new modes of instruction (including online learning), while meeting resistance in traditional institutions, can find new niches to grow from (by providing AP classes in subjects a brick-and-mortar school is not staffed to teach, for instance).  And if you think about the educational niches MOOCs are filling (homeschoolers or lifelong learners, for example), you can see a similar pattern of a non-traditional market giving a new innovation the support it needs to reach critical mass.

While I’m fond of the disruptive technology metaphor for EdTech, the recent surge in investment in this field also points to another category of industries we might turn to for analogies: speculative markets such as telcom.

Now there have been speculative markets for centuries (such as the 17th century tulip craze), or even millennia (if you want to consider the debts run up by Roman Senators to buy land in newly conquered territories as a form of speculation).  But the industry I have in mind when I think about EdTech is the telecommunications craze that soaked up billions in investment in the 1990s.

During that period, analysts repeatedly pointed out that there were too many companies and too many technologies competing to lay down the lines that would bring serious bandwidth to every home, every school and every business.  And, indeed, many of the players who entered this field with hundreds of millions of dollars of investor backing no longer exist.

But when companies like Nortel went out of business, their departure did not lead to their high-speed cable being ripped from the ground or their satellites shot out of the sky.  Rather, those assets were consolidated under a few bigger more stable market leaders (who could buy them at bargain prices).  And the end result is that the original dream of the telcom industry (high-speed connectivity for all) is now taken for granted (at least by those of us now owning computers that no longer include a telephone jack).

If you think about all the money pouring into EdTech startups, especially those who are collecting subscribers by giving away free stuff with no clear pathway to revenue (much less profitability), you see a similar pattern emerging.  For like a kid digging through a pile of manure certain that a pony can be found at the bottom, investors are flocking to education as the “next big thing” in hope that Cisco President John Chambers was right when he claimed that “online education will make email look like a rounding error.”

The thing is, Chambers was probably correct that elearning will eventually revolutionize education (even if its returns might make it a big vs. a mega industry).  But while we are in the current speculative phase, money is pouring in to support the first round of innovators, and institutions are scrambling to join up with things like MOOC consortia in fear of being left behind.

And even if these first players are not the ones who end up dominating the industry, the courses being created are not going to be erased from every server in the land if one or more players can’t figure out a business model to sustain themselves.  Rather, like the high-speed wireless we all take for granted, they will become assets in an educational infrastructure yet to be defined but certain to change the way we learn (with who constitutes that “we” also being up for grabs).

The post Speculation appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

Remember that these interviews are now available from iTunes as a podcast series that will continue through the length of the Degree of Freedom project.

Now onto Dale Stephens and Uncollege…

The post Interview with Dale Stephens of Uncollege appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

Most importantly, a Degree of Freedom podcast is now available from iTunes.

The first episodes include the interviews that have been appearing on this site on Fridays (with Anant Agarwal of edX, Andrew Ng of Coursera and my two-part talk with Scott Young), packaged with new introduction and closing material (including some clip music generously provided in my Adobe Soundbooth package).

The focus of the podcast will continue to be interviews which I hope to continue releasing both on the site and on iTunes every Friday (give or take) between now and the completion of my Degree of Freedom at the end of the year.

Right now, I’ve got an interview with Dale Stephens in the can ready for release tomorrow, and a bunch of material from a discussion with the team behind edX’s Greek Hero that I’ll be using to kick off discussions with the teachers behind the MOOCs next week.

Like most podcasts (and Web projects), this one doesn’t do anyone much good if they don’t know about it.  So if you like what you hear, please leave a rating or a comment on the cast’s iTunes page as well as spread the word to anyone you think would be interested in hearing from folks who are creating or taking advantage of this brave new world of free learning.

Other than that, some other Degree of Freedom stuff you might be interested in includes:

Review of courses I’ve completed continue to be republished at the wonderful MOOC News and Reviews site, most recently a write up of Coursera’s Property and Liability taught by Professor Richard Adelstein of Wesleyan University.

At Huffington Post, I’ve summarized some material from this site to talk about Independent Learners and Signaling Learning.

Finally, I had a brief appearance in this short news piece that appeared last week on Voice of America.

With writing and learning taking up so much of every day, I’ve not had the chance to reach out and thank everyone who has visited the site, left comments, dropped notes or linked to Degree of Freedom in the few months since I launched in March.  So let me use this moment to extend extreme appreciation throughout the ether to everyone reading these words.

And to those who have kindly asked about the condition of my psyche as I reach the end of my sophomore year, I can assure you that I’m just getting warmed up.

The post Degree of Freedom Podcast – Now on iTunes appeared first on Degree of Freedom.

The first, which kicks off the Fast Company article that originally brought Anya to my attention, talks about college as being more like a string quartet than a factory with regard to the role potentially played by efficiency.

For if you measure efficiency by the number of people needed to create a particular product or deliver a particular service, then applying principles that would help generate the same output using fewer “workers” is obviously misapplying the concept since you wouldn’t reduce a quartet to three, two or one player(s) in the name of increased productivity.

The second argument, highlighted in DIY-U, has to do with the contradiction at the heart of a college (prestige or otherwise) claiming to offer a unique and valuable service with regard to the quality education they deliver.

For if the staff and teaching techniques offered at a Harvard or Princeton are indeed so remarkable as to demand hundreds of thousands of dollars in the marketplace, then why shouldn’t those people and techniques work for anyone partaking in such pedagogically powerful programs?

But most prestige colleges and universities don’t offer their allegedly effective products to any and all.  Rather, they limit their customer base to only those who have already proven themselves academically, which means their “customers” would likely succeed in any learning environment.  Which brings up the question of whether big-name educational institutions with highly discriminating admissions processes are actually “selling” education or discrimination.

Regarding the efficiency argument, if you focus on just the string quartet itself then the notion of increasing productivity by reducing “workers” does indeed seem ridiculous.  But if you think about what a musical group actually produces (music listened to by audiences) then advances in recording and distribution technology have indeed created massive efficiency plays.

For example, musical groups can now record at a distance by working from multiple connected recording studios.  But more importantly, the music they create can be distributed to magnitudes more listeners via iTunes and musical performances shared with masses via YouTube, meaning performances once enjoyed by handfuls can now reach millions.

This is one of the reasons why I’ve been so attracted to the concept of the MOOC since it represents a similar “efficiency play” with regard to education. For even if only a few thousand people out of the hundred thousand who sign up ever complete their MOOC course, that’s thousands more than could have previously taken the same course when it was bottled up within an institution.  And given that there is no barrier to entry (such as a competitive admissions process), then MOOCs represent one of the first instances when the supposedly unique and valuable products an institution has created and/or nurtured can be made available to anyone who wants them.

This brings us back to the college contradiction noted above.

For if a university does indeed offer something special in its classrooms, what better way to prove it than to make that special something available to anyone who wants to try it out (not just a pre-screened elite made up of people who have already demonstrated their abilities)?

Presuming MOOCs don’t hit any of the walls that stand before them (such as money drying up if business models don’t emerge or institutions deciding they no longer want to share), we could reach a point when learning (if not earning) a degree becomes more a matter of personal effort (applied at any point in your life) vs. the ability to successfully navigate a college admissions process that only looks at what you’ve been able to achieve as an adolescent.

The post The MOOC Challenge to College Economics appeared first on Degree of Freedom.