What is a MOOC?

Written and Narrated by Dave Cormier
Video by Neal Gillis

Researchers:
Dave Cormier
Alexander McAuley
George Siemens
Bonnie Stewart

Created through funding received by the University of Prince Edward Island through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's "Knowledge Synthesis Grants on the Digital Economy"

CC-BY 2010

The massive online open course is a response to the challenges faced by organizations and distributed disciplines at a time of information overload.

It used to be that when you wanted to know about something, you could do a few things.

You could ask someone, you could buy a book, you could try to figure it out yourself, or you could go to school.

course, the thing you're trying to figure out, you could go there and take it!

You could get access to information about a topic.

An instructor at ... and books to pull the information together from a library.

You might even find others are also interested in the same things that you are.

The MOOC, is built for a world where information is everywhere.

Where social network obsessed with the same way as you are is a click away.

A digital world.

A world where an internet connection gives you access to a staggering amount of information.

This video will introduce you to how a massive open online course is one way of learning in a network world.

A MOOC is a course, it's open, it's participatory, it's distributed, and it supports lifelong network learning.

In one sense, a massive online course is just that.

It's a course.

It has facilitators, course materials, it has a start and ending, it has participants.

But a MOOC is not a school, it's not just an online course.

It's a way to connect and collaborate while developing digital skills, it's a way of engaging in the learning process that engages what it means to be a student.

It is, maybe most importantly; an event around which people who care about a topic, who can get together and work and talk about it in a structued way.

The course is open.

All of the work gets done in areas accessible for people to read, reflect and comment on.