Open Course

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      MOOCS.  What are they?  Massive Open Online Courses are web based course taught at a distance that are available to anyone with internet access.  These courses may be free of charge and people generally take them to gain information rather than a grade.  Some MOOCS however do have fees and there are certifications that can be earned.  Very recently, MOOCS have been developed to deliver complete post graduate degrees for a fraction of the cost (Onink, 2013), and   according to the New York Times, 2012 became the year of the MOOC (Pappano, 2012).  The use of MOOCS as a way to deliver content is increasing, and with it the audience base is also growing.  Many of the MOOCS that were reviewed were developed and packaged from higher institutions of learning, but as the concept grows, many other organizations may develop courseware to be delivered via MOOC.

     The open course that I reviewed was delivered by Open Yale Course-OYC.  I selected Musi 112: Listening to Music.  The reason I selected this course was specific.  I wanted to see if a course dedicated to listening and interpretation of music would come across to the learner as well at a distance as it did in person. 

•       Does the course appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance environment?

     When you first enter the OYC site, at oyc.yale.edu the top tool bar as courses, about, terms of use and support OYC.  It is laid out to be visually appealing and easy to navigate.  There are also information boxes that informs the user about some generic topics such as use, and credit for the courses.  Under the courses link, there are 21 sub headings for departments at Yale or you can view all courses.  All courses are available in video, audio and text format.  The site provides a brief summary of the department, and a link to enter the specific course selected.   Once the specific course is entered, links are available for a syllabus, sessions, survey and buy books.  The syllabus lists the professor, a brief description of the course, texts with an option to purchase, the course requirements, and grading.  While this open course is free, there are assignments listed to be used with the textbook.  The course is broken down into 23 hour long sessions.  Each session includes a class lecture produced in high quality video.  Also included in most sessions is a resource listing which contains a recorded piece of music that the student are to listen to. The sessions can also be heard in audio only or downloadable written transcripts.  The course appears to be well designed for teaching at a distance and that careful planning went into the delivery method and organization.  “Because of an emphasis on planning and revising, well-designed instruction is repeatable” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 153).  The course appears well suited for the self-directed learner

•          Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction listed in your course textbook?

     After reviewing the OYC Music course, my position would be that it does not follow the recommendations for online instruction.  There is no dialogue between the teacher and the online student.  There is no interaction with classmates, group projects, discussion boards, or assessments that I could find.  The course has great deal of content, but because of the lack of interaction by the student at any level, this appears to a course devised to allow students to be self-taught.  Without the use of proper evaluation tools, there is no measure that learning took place.  So while this course may provide knowledge gain from a personal interest standpoint, it does not meet the rigors of academic preparedness. Learning is one sided.  If the student wishes to find out more information, it would be up to the student in his/her self-directed studies.

•          Did the course designer implement course activities that maximizes learning for the students?

     There were no built in activities for the student in this particular course.  I think as an open source course, more could have been done to build in self-directed activities.  There were pieces to listen to, but no on line activities.  This course while enjoyable, appeared to be nothing more than a face to face synchronous class simply formatted to be viewed at a distance.  While the CMS is intuitive and easy to navigate the course that I examined appeared to take the “craft approach” in that the course appears to be simply packaged for electronic use which may not be the best approach (Huett, et. al., 2008, p, 67).

     In conclusion, open source is a growing resource in the space of distance learning, but careful consideration must be given to its effectiveness in learning.  Open source would be a great consideration for self-directed, or self-paced learning.  A greater emphasis must be made to include evaluation, student to student contact or instructor to student contact to make open source learning the most effective it could be.  

 

References

The open course I explored can be found at oyc.yale.edu 

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for
instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66-70.
 

Onink, T. (2013, May 15). Georgia Tech, Udacity shock higher ed with $7000 degree. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/troyonink/2013/05/15/georgia-tech-udacity-shock-higher-ed-with-7000-degree/

Pappano, L. (2012, November 2). The year of the MOOC. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massive-open-online-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.