What I learned from a demo MOOC.

#456 on my to-do list is to register and muddle my way through a MOOC to see what all the discussion is about. However, I have a hard time committing myself to something that I don’t see myself finishing. This is worsened by all the pretty sad MOOC completion stats that keep flying through my Twitter feed each day. I felt like the universe was sending a sign that was a little less pessimistic than “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” So I was thrilled when I stumbled upon the edX Demo course and found a low committal way to check out the whole MOOC thang.

The course is billed as:

“A fun and interactive course designed to help you explore the edX learning experience. Perfect to take before you start your course.”

Ever the list maker…here’s what I found:

 Cons:

  • Videos were ok – but they’ll never be good enough to replace a strong teacher in person
  • Quiz questions were nothing new. I think I’ve evolved to the point where this is expected in most mediums.
  • Rubric evaluation of writing seemed too formulaic. (Am I sensing some irony here…a rubric that is too formulaic?) Basically I’ll never trust being graded by an automatron.
  • Automation comes at a cost. To scale up education you pay a steep price in interaction. Although discussion groups can mitigate this feeling, I wouldn’t be too keen on spending time interacting with a group of strangers without having some sort of insight from the professor.

Pros:

  • Interactive learning components were the gold in this mine shaft. They represented a lab-like-test-it-out mentality that is a game changer. The immediate feedback on my work elevated the level of learning that can take place in this sandbox setting.
  • Interacting with my peers on my writing and in a discussion forum is nothing new, but it’s crucial to the learning experience. Being able to build a sense of community and identity as a learner sets a student’s place in the classroom. I’ve always been a huge fan of discussion groups anyways b/c I revel in having time to really think and plot out what I’m going to say.
  • The demo pulled back the curtain and revealed it does indeed take a village (or a team) to build this stuff and run these things. (Forgive my technical jargon.) Course staff includes a product manager, video producer and an associate video editor. Interestingly enough they hold bachelors degrees in computer science, and economics and a MFA in filmmaking. (Sounds like a fun team to work with!)

So would I take a MOOC? I’m not sure. I don’t like not completing things so there’s that. I am tempted to audit EdX’s Intro to Computer Science course, but based on the estimated effort (9 problem sets, 10 – 20 hrs each and 1 final project), I think I’d be using it more as a window into a MOOC with content than as a learning tool. Although the course intro video sure does make it look pretty cool.