The Dark Side of MOOCs

The Dark Side of MOOCs:

Are they that bad?

MOOCs have come to supply educational services for people who did not have the possibility to get access to specialized or higher education. However, many scholarly and academic are not sure of MOOCs’ good impact on education. These specialists in learning point out some of the issues that need to be perfected to get better and more positive results: MOOC’s massiveness, divergence with bLearning, and lack of credited value.

A MOOC, by its single nature, implies massiveness; but what’s wrong with a great amount of students in a course? The fact that a MOOC gets to have too many class members implies the lack of student rapport on the instructor’s side. It is simply impossible that an instructor (or group of instructors) deal with 2,000 students, or more, at the same time. This excessive number of class participants, no doubt, leads to the absence of student interaction, an essential element in education considered by many detractors of the use of MOOCs. That is why, limiting the class size, or opening several courses –simultaneously- can be a way to give room to some student-student and student-teacher interaction. Experts, then, need to agree on the “magical” number of students in a MOOC.

The big misunderstanding about MOOCs via kwout

For some education scholars, MOOCs are a synonym of eLearning, and not of bLearning. eLearning, as most of us are already accustomed to, implies some sort of guidance by using video tutorials, instructional audios, and reading on websites or electronic documents. The former two tools can be great for visual and aural learners, but what happens to those students who lack these learning styles? Many of these students whose learning styles repertoires do not include visual and aural learning become the candidates for dropping out of MOOCs. eLearning (or distant education) is not for everyone. The lack of teacher/instructor feedback is demotivating for many students, no matter how many supplementary videos for instruction you provide. MOOCs with some kind of bLearning orientation can become more beneficial for students.

The third drawback in the use of MOOCs is its unaccredited nature. If compared to a webinar, i.e., a MOOC is not recognized by higher education institutions; however, some great learning can take place for one’s professional development and life with no need for accreditation. Participating in a webinar simply implies the sharing of ideas by a speaker, and later on, the application of those ideas by the participants in their working practices. As we can see, MOOCs are not the panacea for the cost of higher education fees either, but a great way to enlarge one’s PLNs (Professional Learning Networks) as a webinar can be. If anyone is interested in signing up for a MOOC, s/he should be encouraged to do so bearing in mind s/he is trained to maximize their professional performance and not to get credits for their higher education.

Being against MOOCs is like not giving people the chance to access to some sort of education to better perform at work. As Jeff A. Roth pointed out on his article, 4 Steps for Successful eLearning Implementation, “By conducting a short survey, you can evaluate how the features, compatibility, and design are useful to everyone involved.” Members of the MOOCs’ community and experts in education should help this educational initiative become better and more successful.

ETo fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, it’s advisable to research and expand these areas:

1	What’s a MOOC?
2	MOOCS and higher educational learning
3	MOOCs and PLNs
4	Reasons to take a MOOC
5	MOOCs and credited courses

Professor Jonathan Acuña-Solano

ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica

Curricular Developer at CCCN

Senior ELT Professor at Universidad Latina

Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in Central America

For further comments or suggestions, reach me at:

@jonacuso – Twitter

jonacuso@gmail.com – Gmail

Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at the university are:

1. http://bin-02.blogspot.com/	2. http://bin-04.blogspot.com/
3. http://bin-06.blogspot.com/	4. Computering Applications in Education

Cuban, L. (2013) The big misunderstanding about MOOCs. Washington Post, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/24/the-great-divide-over-moocs/

Roth, J. (2013) 4 Steps for Successful eLearning Implementation. Available at http://interactyx.com/social-learning-blog/4-steps-for-successful-elearning-implementation/#.USzB__Zft-E.twitter

If you want a copy of the article, download it here.

The Dark Side of MOOCs by Jonathan Acuña

Taken from http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2013/02/18/the-dark-side-of-moocs/