Self-assessment

I feel so fortunate for choosing this course which focuses on massive open online courses. It is maybe the only course which has concrete content and one particular topic I have taken in the University of Alabama. I like it because it is not abstract, and also it is about a popular and advanced way of learning. The form of this course is quite fresh for me, and I never took a course like that. The teacher helped students to build a community online mainly through blog and also twitter. We read the readings and watched the videos that our teacher provided us every week, and then we posted our own blogs about what had we read and watched. We shared our opinions on blog and twitter, which allow us to hear different voices about a same topic and to see how diversity our perspectives are. It is so beneficial to read classmates’ posts which give me new information, and the different angles of view among us let me well rethink my opinions. Moreover, our teacher gave us many reading materials which come from many different people with all kinds of ideas arranged by different and gradually developed topics on MOOC. It helped me to see a whole process of my opinion toward a thing, MOOC. I perceived that when you want to judge something it is better to cumulate information about it as more as possible and as comprehensive as possible. Actually, I found my opinion became more mature and comprehensive toward MOOC through studying it from all kinds of angles week by week. It taught me that be careful to make a judgment, because things have many facets waiting for me to see. At last, I learned a lot of technical things in this course that must be very useful in the future, like Bookmark, Slideshare, Screenr, Survey Monkey, and so on.

In this course, like I have mentioned I learned a lot through reading and watching the materials that teacher gave us. I finished all of these readings and videos. I really enjoyed them for their diversity content and also the reading materials were not that long as the articles in journals. Therefore, I carefully read them all, which allowed me to bring some great ideas into my posts. I also saved some interesting videos into my laptop, because I want to share them with my friends when I introduce MOOC to them.

  Our discussions in this course were mainly through blog and twitter. It was open, online discussion. One advantage of this kind of discussion is that we can see other people’s discussion besides our own discussion. Meanwhile, what is important is all of the discussions can be saved online which allow us to retrospect anytime. It also builds an online community of our classmates, even class over, the community still exists. I read most of our classmates’ posts every week, and I replied to the posts which I was more interested and resonating. I also read all of the classmates’ discussions on blog. It is an interesting and inspiring experience. I think Jim and Keith, especially, had some great opinions on their blogs.

According to the course requirement and my own interest, I signed up for a course about Chinese history figure—The First Emperor of Qin on Coursera. It is the most interesting history course I have ever taken. At the beginning, I felt stressful because it seems I took one more course for this semester, but I did feel more and more relaxed, for I found that I liked this course and it was freer in managing my time to learn it. I watched the lectures on line and finished most of the assignments, I missed two, actually. One of it is too hard to answer and the other just need too much time to finish, honestly. Even though I missed the two assignments, I think I learned a lot in this course through the lectures, and discussions with classmates.

Based on what I had learned about MOOCs and my own knowledge in intercultural communication, I opened a micro- MOOC, Intercultural Communication on Coursesites. It is a five-week course, and the first class is an introduction which helps students to know what is intercultural communication, and why we learn it; and the second, third, and forth class are respectively on three popular and basic topics in intercultural communication. The fifth class is an integration and case study that I will help students to bring all knowledge what they have learned together to analyze one case from my own experience and also some movies. The three topics I have chosen are very useful in daily life and which are not abstract but interesting. It can attract students’ attention on and interests in them. I provided the students many reading and watching materials; and the way and the pace of learning was under my careful arrangement. I spend a lot of time on choosing the study materials for them, for I hope I can give them the most useful, inspiring and also interesting information. As to the assignments, I believe I have clear purpose after careful consideration when I gave them an assignment. I do think all of the assignments in my micro-MOOC are useful and helpful for their understanding of intercultural communication. I also tried to help students to build a community online through blog, and motivate them to make best use of discussion board which can be a massive opinion and information pool. After all, I hope what I have done are really helpful.

In the end, I want to owe my sincere gratitude to my dear teacher Dr. Major, who led me into the world of MOOC, and I also want to express my thankfulness to my classmates who have had great discussions with me, who have spent their time on reading my posts, and who have inspired me. By the way, I have signed up for a marketing course on Coursera last week, I think I like to continue using this learning platform to grab some knowledge after my graduation.

MOOC Review

In the past several weeks, I took a course on Coursera—Chinese Ancient Historical figure-The First Emperor of Qin, taught by Dr. Lv, a famous professor of Taiwan University. It is a very interesting course because the professor’s fabulous lectures and the new way of learning (MOOC, a massive open online course, whichemphasizes unlimited participation and open access through the web). When I had to take a course from MOOCs, I searched on the Internet and browsed the lists of the courses. I was attracted by this course firstly for its topic, the great famous figure in Chinese history, and secondly is the prestige of Dr. Lv.  Before I signed up this course, what was in the prominent place in the course introduction page is the introduction of the professor. I think for this course and also for many courses on MOOCs would put the professors’ prestige into a very important place in their marketing strategies. That is also can explain why the most of teachers on MOOCs come from famous universities. Certainly I have to admit that Dr. Lv is really the most knowledgeable and instructive history teacher I have ever met, who provided me a lot of new perspectives and also vivid stories for studying history.

The course can be categorized into XMOOCs which adopts a more traditional way of teaching and learning. In this course the main study material is the professor’s taped lectures. There are nearly 7 lectures per week, and each one is about ten minutes long interspersed with some quizzes which are not accounted into final scores. Students would finish the assignment for every week and their performances will be graded for their final grades. Because the assignments were writing articles or making projects, the teacher had no time to read all of them. He used the peer assessment to grade students’ work. Every student had to grade other people’s work for three times. If you didn’t finish peer assessment task when it was your turn to be a grader, you will get punished—the grades of your assignment for that week will be reduced by 20%. Grading classmates’ work was an interesting experience, which gave me an opportunity to see a lot of interesting opinions, and creative thoughts. It was helpful for opening my mind. Furthermore, I found the students’ correctness or comments on my work were also interesting and helpful. Of course, there existed some problems, for example, their correctness is not always right or helpful.

In this course, the way of teaching and learning was really more traditional, and there were not too many technological tools for study. We didn’t use blog, twitter, or anything the like to build our students’ relationship. We just talk on the discussion board. However, I thought it was so amazing. I was beneficial from it. At the beginning, I guessed less people would discuss on it, because it was not required and also this course had no credit. What made me so surprised is that till today the list of discussion topics had 29 pages, and some topics have more than 50 replies. Moreover, many students proposed some very great ideas which are very inspirational. Meanwhile, they openly questioned some opinions of the professor, and I found many of their positions were so reasonable and creative. I thought I saw an obvious advantage of humanity courses on this kind of open learning platform. Because for many problems and topics in these areas have no exact right answer, and what we need is diverse voices. And then MOOC provide the free discussion environment. Meanwhile, I did see that people who choose a course for interest more than credit bring more passions and creativities. On the discussion board, the professor also participated into our discussion, and he gave us some directions when our discussion met confusions.

In this course, even I had no opportunities to talk with our teacher and classmates face to face, but the professors often contacted us through email and reminded us the deadline for the assignments and recommended us some studying materials. He divided one week teaching videos into 7 short taped lectures, and students could just spent 10 minutes per day for watching the lecture. The assignment of every week he gave us would take our one to five hours to finish it. It is not long. In my opinion, these assignments are very constructive, I can see how he wanted us to improve and what he wanted us to get through the assignments. To be short, I saw the value of the assignments.

After the course, the professor invited us to do a poll for this course which he will use it to improve this course. All in all, it is an interesting and beneficial experience for me. I am sure I will sign up other courses on MOOCs in the future.

 

Click here to take survey

Grading on MOOC

Use grading is a main way to assess students' performance in courses around the world. Certainly, it may have some tenable reasons for its long-term prevalence. From my view, grading is a most direct way to judge students' performance in studying process, especially in studying of science. Second, it gives people encouragements for their good performance, and  draws others'attentions who get lower scores. Third, it serves as a way of self-assessment.

However, it is not always a good thing. Grading is seen as opposite to  learning and curiosity, because it imparts the competitive feelings to people when they are learning. While, learning should be a deep pleasant which people are willing to carry on with them during a whole lifetime. Less people will like the feeling of competition which may bring nervousness, anxiety and maybe diffidence. These negative feelings could reduce people's willingness to study. Furthermore, some teachers and parents think highly of grades, which make students excessively emphasize their grades. This situation is not totally good, because students may overlook their practical abilities, or try to cheat in exam for a higher score,like people's discussion of plagiarized assignment on MOOCs . The worst situation is they just pay attention to grades and think it is the most important thing during their near 20 years of school life which is a great part of their lifetime. It is not rare in many country. Students strive for their exams using most of their time, and they give up and even never perceive their colorful childhood. It is not fair. I think it kills students' creativity and it is a way of using the authority  of so called general thinking which is formed in a long time to shape students' thoughts and behaviors. I think this problem may be not obvious in America, but it is really obvious in other countries. If I am a teacher, I don't like I will just use grades to assess my students, and I don't hope a lower scores will reduce someone's interest and confidence. I don't want my students feel that the process of study is too stressful. But it is seems difficult to realize.

In my micro-MOOC, I will use more comments instead of grades. I will also use the peer grading, but if you can complete all of the tasks you can get A. If you finish part of them, you may get B. Of course, if you have no time to do the work, you have no grades. However, I believe all of the students will learn something here, and the initiative is in your hand, you can choose participating more and obtaining  more, or participating less, and getting less. I totally think it is students' right to make this choice from their interests, hobbies, and considerations for themselves, especially on MOOCs. I think one of the differences between MOOC and school education is that learning is  freer and more voluntary on MOOC.


 

MOOC Pedagogy

The discussion of the technology and pedagogy seems a hot topic for a long time. It started with the popularity of the Internet. At present, MOOC, the massive open online courses, is a main topic when people discuss the technological influences on pedagogy. Digital pedagogy became many teachers' new way of education. But what the digital pedagogy really is, I think different may have different opinion. The question "Aren't all online teachers digital pedagogues" is a good problem for all of the online teachers.They need to ask if what they do are digital pedagogy. In my opinion, digital pedagogy can be the course which teacher teaches using some digital method, such as video.But I think it should be more than just using digital tools. Taking MOOC as an example, we can't deny that all of the MOOCs are digital pedagogy which use the Internet as the platform and invite some digital tools. It has more meanings which link people from different places to one online group, and provide them the opportunities to learn from each other.It not just provide the contents to people, what's more, it provides a platform or sources for more information and knowledge. It provides people a new way of learning or a model for learning possibly. Therefore, digital pedagogy not only provides useful technological tools for study, but also introduce a new way of learning and many possibilities of learning. From this perspective, MOOCs should  be based upon both  behavioral concepts and social constructionist ones. 

I partly agree that trying to replicate something we do in face-to-face classes to the majority of MOOCs is the first mistake. I agree because I think if teacher just put the traditional way of education into MOOC, it will loose the meaning of open online course. Furthermore, if like this, it not only  doesn't present its own advantages, but also have disadvantages comparing to face-to-face classes. However, I say partly agree because I think MOOCs can't completely distinguish from traditional classes. No matter what the way of learning is, the purpose should basically be the same, namely, to learn something. Therefore, the main content of a course is also needed on MOOCs. I don't agree that some people take MOOC as a totally transformation  of education, so they take everything on MOOC which is from traditional education as the object of criticism. As a saying goes, the methods used may vary, but the principle is the same. I think when we consider the education on MOOC, we would better choose a middle way.

For my micro MOOC, I will implant some traditional contents that we learn in classes, like some lectures, PowerPoint, and reading materials. Moreover, I will try to highlight the meaning of "open" and "online". I will make the best of all kinds of tools on the Internet; pay attention to sharing experience and information in the process of learning; promote the studying among students; promote students to express their opinion from a opener perspectives. All of these seem hard to realize, but easy to say. Anyway, I will try, and I think many good professors can realize most of them. 

The introduction of the coursefinal from liyanyi

My Micro-MOOC Goal

I have been acting as a student for 20 years, and it is my first time to be a teacher for a course. Honestly, I feel little nervous about it. From a student's angle, I may have no enough abilities to give a lecture well, but I think I may know what kinds of material are good for the students's learning process, and I may be able to provide some different ways of learning which is beneficial to students.

I still haven't decided the platform for my micro-MOOC. The course I want to open is Intercultural Communication which I have took last semester, and I am really interested in it. The course will contains five topics which are important and discussed a lot in intercultural communication studies. I think the audiences of this course is mainly undergraduate students who have little knowledge about intercultural communication. I think it probably is a five-seven weeks of course, and I will introduce a specific topic on intercultural communication in every week. I plan to use this pedagogical approach from many ways: video/traditional lectures, some reading materials, and cases. I also will use discussion board, Twitter, and blog as the platform for the students where they can express their opinions and ideas about the course and discuss the topics. Particularly,I want to use online sharing room where students can share their different experience of intercultural communication or cultural shock through words, pictures, videos, or anything they want. In my micro- MOOC, there is no quiz, but there are some articles need to write, like reading response; students are required to do some project, like introducing themselves from their cultural background; showing some artifacts which can present their cultural characteristics； and analyzing a movie using the contents in this course.   

Actually, in my mind, my role in this course is a material collector and course designer more than a lecture deliverer. I think what I do is to provide students the selected learning material and method, put them into a relatively creative way, and let them deplore the knowledge mainly by themselves. What is more, I want to highlight the collaboration among students, and I do hope I can provide the students opportunities to work with people who come from different cultural backgrounds.Meanwhile, I will try to promote students learn from each other. 

After this course, the students should have a basic understanding about intercultural communication; and a relatively comprehensive understanding about some specific topics in this area;prepare them better for intercultural communication in the future.From my angle, I hope they can learn how to understand a different people or phenomenon from different culture, and learn to reduce prejudices and respect other different things.

 

Professors & MOOCs

As long as the expanding of MOOCs, debating about MOOC among professors never ceased. There are different opinions which mainly because the different roles that professors play in MOOCs. As we know,the professors who teach a course on MOOCs mostly come from famous and wealthy universities.On the one hand, the prestige of the universities and the professors is a guarantee of high enrollment of the courses; on the other hand, famous and wealthy universities have the strength to operate MOOC courses. However,the second or third level colleges or universities are hard to operate this kind of learning platform, because their relatively weaker academic and economic strength, and also their less prestige don't prepare them well to compete with famous universities in education on MOOCs. From this sense, the meaning of MOOC to these two general kinds of professors is different, which can be a reason for their debates.
As to the rock star professors, who are famous and popular on MOOCs, they obtain a new platform to spread the influences of their teaching and enhance their academic status.They choose to participate in MOOCs also because they are willingness to provide free or cheaper but high qualities learning opportunities for more students who have access to a MOOC around the world; they also want to stand on the leading edge of the educational development; and increase their visibility (The Minds Behind the MOOCs). Certainly, some teachers open courses on MOOC because of their superiors suggestions or command more than their own willingness. However, other professors who don't want to join MOOCs think that teaching a course on MOOC distract their attentions from their normal on-campus duties because preparing a course on MOOC needs a lot of time; and they thought it is a threat to professors' intellectual property (Threats); meanwhile, they think that professor who have real interests and vigorous attitudes toward education won't teach course like the way on MOOCs, which just using shorting lectures and some quiz; they highlight the interactions between teacher and students or between students in traditional education, and also personalized education which is impossible on MOOC (The MOOC Racket). Some professors don't support inviting MOOC courses into universities or colleges.From their opinions, it will threaten the normal faculties interests in traditional education. As ordinary faculties, they can't play a role on MOOCs easily, for the reason that the students on MOOC are centralized to famous teachers, the market to ordinary faculties is very limited.In order to protect their own interests and academic rigorous,some of them show definite objection to inviting MOOC courses into school.

In my opinion, if people invite a lot of courses provided by MOOCs into school, it definitely will influence some faculties' interests. At the same time, it also has influences on  professors' daily work in local schools who open courses on MOOCs. However, I believe that introducing courses from MOOCs to schools is not easy, because it will met a lot of conflicts. Professors who teach both in schools and on MOOCs have time conflicts which is not easy to solve; and their intellectual property faces threat;  the work they need to do for teaching a course on MOOC can't give them appropriate economic return at present; meanwhile, it must exist many professors who hold objective opinions toward MOOCs because of the shortcomings of MOOC and the problems it may arouse in the future, especially about credits awarding from it.












 

Openness and MOOC

Many people have striven for higher educational openness for a long time. We can see many countries have increased their school enrollment for a large degree in these years. In china, there are just two or three students out of near 30 students can enter colleges twenty years ago; but now more than 90% high school students can go to colleges. The is a result of advocating openness in higher education. Obviously, this is one meaning of openness of higher education. Openness here means relatively open enrollment. It of course can't be completely open, we need to screen out some unqualified students, to some extent. Openness here provides more students opportunities to receive higher education, which shows the respects to individuals' rights. Meanwhile, it is also a way to improve the whole quality of society.

The second meaning of openness in higher education just like mentioned by many people (e.g.In Shadow Of MOOCs, Open Education Makes Progress), it is the open access to educational resources. Library system is a very important part of colleges which like the heart. Many colleges and universities strive to expand their library systems continuously, in order to provide more resources for their students and teachers, and also to show their educational strength. Because of high price of books, the open resources definitely give students a broader way to knowledge. Students won't have no opportunity to reading many nutritious materials just because of no money.

Openness in my view also means open for all kinds of opinions. It doesn't only mean that we won't punish or reject people who hold different or strange opinions, it means we should really welcome and respect different opinions. In higher education, students' opinions should not be bounded with or limited by politics or religions. Only when higher education break these boundaries, it can be called real openness.If we just focus on the enrollment or resources, it is only the appearance of openness.

Further more, base on the third meaning of openness, openness in higher education should provide a open platform for students who come from different cultures and different countries. There is one old saying that you can't know your shallow until you go out of your culture. Different cultures bring different spontaneous concepts, which is not like scientific learning. These culturally based concepts is the nutrition of creativity. The open platform also plays a role in eliminating prejudice, and broaden mind and insight.

MOOC, a new way of learning, should bring these meanings of openness into itself. Open in enrollment is definitely a characteristic of MOOC. As to the open resources, Baraniuk said that "open" on MOOC just means open enrollment, not open content(In Shadow Of MOOCs, Open Education Makes Progress). Some resources on MOOC are not free, but cheaper to get. A cheaper way to get these resources also can be seen as a relatively openness. Meanwhile, the students on MOOC come from different countries, and resources on MOOC actually provide them many materials which they can't get normally. Furthermore, MOOC can partly realize the third and the forth meanings of openness because of its open platform. However, teachers' speech can be limited to some extent, also because the open platform and recorded lectures. All in all, MOOC should try to practice the "open" appropriately on the premise of its normally operation.