WEBVTT

00:00:00.440 --> 00:00:00.893
MOOC.

00:00:01.291 --> 00:00:02.132
Well, what's that?

00:00:03.115 --> 00:00:03.926
The word MOOC is an acronym.

00:00:04.681 --> 00:00:09.925
I should at least say once what it stands
for: Massive Online Open Course.

00:00:11.328 --> 00:00:13.094
That was the easy part, just to give you
those words.

00:00:14.157 --> 00:00:17.046
Now to give a definition, that's going to
be very challenging.

00:00:18.281 --> 00:00:20.331
For every one of those words, I think it's
fair

00:00:20.593 --> 00:00:22.913
to say that there is a generally accepted
understanding of what

00:00:23.167 --> 00:00:26.011
the word means, but then there is a
substantial number of

00:00:26.210 --> 00:00:29.087
people who challenge that understanding,
who try to push it further.

00:00:30.378 --> 00:00:33.447
For instance, massive, you can't give a
number there because

00:00:33.765 --> 00:00:36.119
a thousand students is already a large
class for an instructor.

00:00:37.289 --> 00:00:39.834
But it's ridiculously small compared to some
of the MOOCs

00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:42.263
which have managed to attract hundreds of
thousands of students.

00:00:44.095 --> 00:00:45.325
Online should be clear.

00:00:46.245 --> 00:00:48.525
It means people do activities online such
as watching

00:00:48.686 --> 00:00:51.728
videos, reading texts, answering quizzes,
or talking on forums.

00:00:52.886 --> 00:00:55.478
That's what most people accept but it
ignores that

00:00:55.689 --> 00:00:58.052
some professors have tried to preach to
the physical world.

00:00:59.362 --> 00:01:03.526
For instance, by meeting their
students, or organizing Meet Ups in

00:01:03.932 --> 00:01:09.484
different cities, or by assigning
real-life physical lab work to do at home.

00:01:11.449 --> 00:01:12.655
The course part should also be clear.

00:01:13.886 --> 00:01:17.764
The beast must have pedagogical goals and
a structure that matches those goals.

00:01:18.895 --> 00:01:22.764
That means they should be more like a tutorial 
than a reference manual or an encyclopedia.

00:01:24.176 --> 00:01:27.364
But then, some people throw in other
concepts with the word, course.

00:01:28.845 --> 00:01:29.921
Maybe you should get a degree at the end.

00:01:30.641 --> 00:01:32.363
Maybe you should have a class and teach a
bunch of

00:01:32.769 --> 00:01:35.644
students at once, so, a big group of
students that you teach.

00:01:37.689 --> 00:01:40.407
Finally, the word open is more
controversial.

00:01:41.610 --> 00:01:43.605
In MOOCs, it's open because students
should

00:01:43.723 --> 00:01:45.125
be allowed to take the class for free.

00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:47.731
They should have access to the content for
free.

00:01:48.890 --> 00:01:51.922
They can have to pay for some extra
services, such as a certificate.

00:01:52.766 --> 00:01:56.326
But really in the end, access to content
is free for the learner.

00:01:58.206 --> 00:02:00.733
The problem here is that it's a very
different usage

00:02:01.126 --> 00:02:04.204
of the word open from the usage
popularized in the past.

00:02:05.892 --> 00:02:09.000
For instance, before there existed open

00:02:09.451 --> 00:02:12.609
educational resources or open courseware,
that

00:02:12.969 --> 00:02:16.031
still exists but it used the word open in
a different way.

00:02:17.008 --> 00:02:21.647
Open educational resources are teaching
material with a very permissive license,

00:02:22.813 --> 00:02:26.923
and is available for any teacher to use
and reuse in their own class.

00:02:28.448 --> 00:02:30.966
It's sort of encouraging recycling if you
want.

00:02:32.652 --> 00:02:34.808
Open CourseWare is one of MIT's
initiatives in

00:02:35.285 --> 00:02:38.164
this direction, offering MIT classes for
anyone to reuse.

00:02:40.282 --> 00:02:44.090
If you want, they' are like open educational resources already structured in a course format.

00:02:45.969 --> 00:02:50.609
Ultimately with MOOC, or with Massive
Online Open Course, you get four

00:02:51.044 --> 00:02:53.123
words, four different flavors, and
everyone

00:02:53.407 --> 00:02:55.772
in every course combines these flavors
differently.

00:02:57.367 --> 00:02:58.134
That's the way I see it, at least.

00:02:58.650 --> 00:02:59.963
The most important aspect of the MOOC

00:03:00.244 --> 00:03:02.885
revolution in education is that new
technology

00:03:03.649 --> 00:03:05.645
to support each of those flavors is

00:03:05.931 --> 00:03:09.292
being actively developed and integrated
into one framework.

00:03:10.751 --> 00:03:13.844
Then educators can tweak each, innovate,
and

00:03:14.162 --> 00:03:15.210
repurpose the technology for their own
means.

00:03:17.575 --> 00:03:18.854
For instance, I've heard of very
successful,

00:03:19.174 --> 00:03:21.847
small, private, online courses using
M.O.O.C. platforms.

00:03:22.887 --> 00:03:24.482
And many universities have started to use

00:03:24.764 --> 00:03:27.812
these platforms to support their own
residential teaching.

00:03:29.124 --> 00:03:30.888
That's what's exciting about MOOCs: a lot

00:03:31.141 --> 00:03:33.564
of new technology aimed at improving
education.