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.

Credits & MOOCs

People want to learn for many purposes. They may want to learn something they  are really interested in, but they didn't study in school or as their courses for for a degree traditional education. They may want to learn something because they need them in their work or daily life, in this case, the knowledge or skills they want to learn is a kind of extension or complement of knowledge. Certainly, a lot of people learn something for a degree and a future career. I think these should be the people's main purpose of learning.

From these angle, we maybe can divided the students on MOOCs into three big types. The first type learn something from their interest, some learn for the needs of daily life or job, and some of them learn for achieving a degree. Among them, the first kind of people may less care about credits, the third kind of people care credits most, and the second kind of people are in the middle. Credits can be an evidence that you have learned something, and you have reached the study requirement of one course.It is a rigid way to prove what you have learned. However, obviously, it is also the most effective and easiest way to assess students. MOOC is a great way to learn, but not all of students who learn on MOOCs can get credits. There are just a few courses on MOOC which can give students credits if they pass the exams and complete the study. Meanwhile, there are just a few college or universities accept the credits from MOOC. It seems unfair to some people, because people who perform poorly and get a C in schools will get credits, but who learn well on MOOC get no credit (Into the Future With MOOC's).  It is undeniable that the value of credits has shrunk to some extent, along with the increasing enrollment of universities and colleges. Therefore, who complete a course and pass exams on MOOC seems should be given credits, and these credits should be accepted by universities and colleges (Into the Future With MOOC's). 

Colorado State University-Global Campus is the first school in United States to grant credit to students who passed a MOOC, but the result is no takers (A University's Offer of Credit for a MOOC Gets No Takers).I think that does not mean MOOC met a big fail. It is normal to some extent, because people are not inclined to spend money or efforts on a new thing which is not widely acknowledged and accepted, especially when the thing is serious for them, like credits. If just a few courses and a few universities accept the credits from MOOCs, it is hard to persuade students to take, even it is cheap, because it has no guarantee for its universal acceptance. Therefore, I believe MOOC still need a relatively long time to build a stable， feasible and acceptable credits awarding system. Some people mentioned that MOOCs can provide prior learning credits (Making It Count), I think it is a good idea. Through this way, students can get their degree more cheaply and quickly, but how to evaluate their knowledge have learned is problematic.

As to me, I think the widely accepted of credits from MOOC is a main way to attract students to get credits from MOOC, but new questions arising. If the credits can be widely approved and accepted on MOOCs, is there any limitations there? In other word, will all of the courses on MOOCs  be approved to give credits, if not, what kind of courses can be approved, what is the standards or measures? If most of the courses can be approved, and then MOOCs may attract more students and famous professors. Consequently, education seems will be more and more in the hands of famous universities，and then the uneven distribution of educational resources may causes new problems. Of course, MOOCs' runner may have abilities to solve these problems, but I do think they are worthy of consideration.

Economics of MOOCs

MOOC have launched for less than ten years, it is still in a state of experimentation as  CEO of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun said. So far, there are a lot of discussions about MOOC, including its content, its role in higher education, its fresh modes of learning, and the like. An unavoidable problem about MOOC is that in what ways MOOC can run for a long time just with free courses, or in what ways MOOC can make money. 

The key factor which is an important condition for MOOC's long-term running is its attraction to students. No matter the courses on MOOCs are all for free or people who run MOOC make money through different ways on MOOCs, students are the key factor. There may be one attraction here like David Holmes concluded the large environment of higher education today provides good soil for MOOC, which means the rising college costs and the shrinking values of Bachelor's Degree (How will the MOOC make money). Meanwhile, some elite universities and professors have joined in or plan to join in MOOC is also a big attraction. Obviously, these universities and professors not only can show their good will, and also win their prestige around the world through spreading their top education. But the problem now is the economic or financial problem. As we know, most of the course on MOOC is for free, which is its important advantage for attracting students. However, running a MOOC would cost a lot of money, Professors also need to preparing for their course through hard working. Therefore, how can we imagine that MOOCs can run for many years totally for free. Some people hold pessimistic attitude toward the future of MOOC,  and indicate that "it has a fatal economic flaw which makes it all but certain to fail" (Bitter Reality of MOOConomics). I think this is a possible result of MOOC if it does't introduce new modes of operation, or successful ways of making money.  

I am so glad to see some good advice have been provided to MOOC to improve their operation and earn money. For example, courses on MOOC are still free, but if people want to get certificates then they need to pay; MOOC provides colleges and universities sponsored classes; or offer consumers additional paid resources, like online library  (Infographic: How will the MOOCs make money?). Some fresher and creative suggestion are also raised: like purchsed Turing on MOOCs, collaborative group learning, problem sponsored learning, and syndication (Money Models for MOOCs). In these ways, I believe MOOC can strive for his own way. But to introduce these new things to MOOC and achieve its stable development is possible, but not easy. Firstly, in most of these areas, MOOC will meet its competitors. For example online purchased tutoring, how  we can be persuaded to hire a online tutor, instead of  one which we can talk face to face in daily life. Secondly, how people can accept the certificates get from a MOOC has the same value with that get from a university. Thirdly, MOOC also face a problem that how to improve the completion rate on MOOCs if they want to attract more universities or colleges to buy their sponsored courses.

Of course, there will be more problems along with more opportunities MOOC facing. No body knows the exact future of MOOC. Although, many top universities and some companies want to have places in this new thing, or this advanced way of education, how to make it longer and stronger need cool heads and creative thoughts. 

MOOC Can Be a Good Assistant for Higher Education

MOOCs may be disruptive to higher education as we know it. Is it a disruption? Why or why not? As to this question, my answer is no. From my point of view, MOOC can be a useful way of learning which can exist as an assistant of higher education, a way of long life learning. But it can't replace the traditional higher education, and it is also not disruptive to higher education.
Firstly, MOOCs provide  a lot of people around the world the chance to get excellent education, People who can't afford the high tuition fees , no time to participate in a full-time college study, interested in some courses and want to expand their knowledge along whole life, want to take courses instructed by some particular teachers who people can't learn from  face to face, or people who want to learn with  managing  time freely. This advantages are really salient and beneficial. How could we say they are disruptions to higher education? As my own experience, I like Chinese History, and I really admire a history teacher who teach in Taiwan. I have had no access to his class, until now I sign up his course on MOOC. After all, MOOC has a lot of advantages which people can get knowledge from it. 
Secondly, MOOC has its own limitations which decide that MOOC have no ability to disrupt higher education, not to mention that replace traditional education in my view. As Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk mentioned MOOCs finally pop the tuition bubble.(For Whom Is College Being Reinvented?) The free courses on MOOC can be a big attraction for many people. However, people who have access to a MOOC and can use it, even with many tools like Blogger, Twitter and so on, most of them are not the real poor people who can't afford college education. Especially in developing country， the people who can't afford the tuition fee also have no money to buy a computer, and don't know how to use it for study. As people said that students from the bottom tier usually need face to face instruction (Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk).From another perspective, when you put a lot of money in your study, it may be an chip which encourage you to study hard, instead of wasting money. I agree with the view that "Credits is the coin of the academic realm" ( Marc Bousquet, 2012, Good MOOC’s, Bad MOOC’s). It highlights the certificate or diploma of education. Can certificate or diploma from MOOC can be weigh equally as that from a college or university? If yes, then it maybe possible that MOOC can replace the traditional way of education. But my answer is no. The values of the certificate from MOOC and a real college can be different. In a university, we have the experience of face-to-face communication with our teachers and classmates, we have the experience of coping with pressure caused by our huge amounts of assignments, we have to opportunities to debate with each other in class as soon as some ideas come up, we are exposed to a community filled with competition and cooperation, and so on. After all, the university experience can't be replace by MOOC. Moreover, the value of the certificate, we call gold content in China, is also related to the environment you study in and the hard work you have paid. Study in a university is more intensive, relatively laborious and systematic than MOOC. Universities which provide the face-to-fave communications potentially create a personal relationship network for students, which is not only beneficial to the future career, but also a life long treasure.At last, some courses in arts area more suit for real class education. Therefore, I don't agree with the opinion that MOOC may replace many colleges except for the top 50 (Scott Carlson & Goldie Blumenstyk, 2012, For Whom Is College Being Reinvented?).  
All in all, I think, MOOC is a good helper of higher education, and won't disrupt higher education and can't replace traditional education.  

The Differences Between xMOOC and cMOOC

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are more and more popular in these days and it is seen as a revolution of education.Generally, MOOCs can be divided into two big categories, the first one is xMOOC, such as Edx and Coursera; the second one is cMOOC, such as Udacity. Both of them all provide a platform for people around the world who have the access to a MOOC to study online. There are different kinds of courses on MOOCs, and people can sign up for free and partly paid (Siemens,2012,MOOCs are really a platform).  Both of them give people a chance to study who may have no time or money to study in a university, or who have no access to great and top education around the world. Through MOOC, people can get a lot of valuable information and great thoughts from excellent teachers or professors.No matter where are they, if they have access to a MOOC, they will have equal rights to get higher and advanced education. Meanwhile, they can manage their time more freely than study in a university. Most of the time, they just need to complete their assignments or study before the end of a week. Because the materials, like videos and lectures are available all the time. Both of them can provide you a certificate or approval when you complete your course on MOOCs, which will help you, to some extent in finding a job.As to how great the extent will be is a good question which discussed a lot. I believe the extent won't be fixed, and it will change in the future. 
Now, let's talk about the differences between cMOOC and xMOOC. cMOOC emphasizes the concept of connectivist, or connectivist way of learning (Downes,2011,'Connectivism' and Connective Knowledge). That is to say, " that knowledge is distributed and learning is the process of navigating, growing, and pruning connections"(What is the theory that underpins our moocs?). Teachers on cMOOC will post some short videos, less than 10 minutes, and also small questions to help students. The interactions on cMOOC are distributed, multi-spaced, and it seems no a fixed center for the study network, which is unlike the course on xMOOC (What is the theory that underpins our moocs?). Teachers and students on cMOOC can be the information providers and generators, people talk with each other and sharing information and opinions. The cMOOC help them to build a social network which facilitate their study, discussion, and knowledge sharing. There are a lot of developed technical tools, like Bookmark, Facebook, Twitter, Blog and so on, to help they study on cMOOC. What is more, this tools also help to build their social network which will still exist even when the courses over. It make the network more meaningful, because people still can talk about what they all interested after the course and in their whole life. Instructors on cMOOC  unnecessarily are professors, PHDs, instead they can be just a graduates. The roles they play are a guidance to good and broad information for students more than the traditional sense of teacher who instill knowledge to students.Therefore, the key factor in cMOOC learning is that let students themselves explore, deepen, and extend the ideas (What is the theory that underpins our moocs?).Meanwhile, the way of learning on cMOOC can keep pace with the time, as we know knowledge is not fixed, and people interact frequently on cMOOC, which will be helpful to update information. Futhermore, different opinions and information can innovate students.At last, as 
Peter Norvig has said in his lecture what makes him so excited is the data they have gathered in this way of learning (Peter Norvig: The 100,000-student classroom). His words impressed me so much, it is really a big treasure which collect so much ideas and information around the world.

The xMOOC, like Edx and Coursera, they " adopt a traditional view of knowledge and learning. Instead of distributed knowledge networks, their MOOCs are based on a hub and spoke model" (What is the theory that underpins our moocs?). Courses on xMOOC seem to be more traditional, because the way of teaching and learning are mostly based on lectures and exams.They use technical grading and peer grading to deal with so many students'assignments, which is questioned for its quality, the graders'standards, but this peer grading also contributes to timely feedback, and opinion sharing. The teachers on xMOOC are mainly famous universities' famous professors, they can provide students high standard of education. The courses therefore  can be defined with elite, smart and rigorous.( While, cMOOC may be more fun.) As to its more traditional way of learning, there are some criticisms about it. Some people think the way of learning on cMOOC depends on knowledge replication and duplication, and it is not good for innovation. Sean Michael Morris think Cousera is just like a old long distance education (Broadcast Education: a Response to Coursera). As to these criticisms, I think Daphne Koller has given us some good responses in her lecture(http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html).I also shocked and impressed by her words that the amount of students which one famous professor taught in a MOOC course, will use him 250 years to reach this amount in his university. It reflect the greatness of MOOC. 

From my own opinion, I do think xMOOC and cMOOC respectively have their own advantages and audiences. They can meet the needs of different people. Actually, some people like the way of learning on xMOOC more than cMOOC, vice versa. After all, both of them are on the way of evolving. 

This video may be helpful for our understanding about MOOC.

  

What is a MOOC?

   MOOC is short for Massive Open Online Course. It is launched in 2008, and has a rapid development in 2012 which is called "The Year of The MOOC" by the New York Times (Bohle, 2013 Librarians and the Era of the MOOC). It aims to open a huge scale of online learning courses through direct presentation of information, interactive exploration of material and assessment . It is generally composed of xMOOC and cMOOC, and they respectively emphasize on connectivist philosophy, and traditional and well-financed courses( Siemens,2012,MOOCs are really a platform).Until today, MOOC is popular in America, but not all of the world, especially in some developing countries. It is mainly for free, but it still exists some for-profit courses.
    Refer to the cMOOC, there are four important principles which I think is important for explaining what is MOOC: aggregation, remixing, re-purposing, and feeding forward (Downes,2011,'Connectivism' and Connective Knowledge). Aggregation emphasizes that MOOC provides a online platform for collection of knowledge, opinions and information from different places and different people, and it doesn't have the limitation of time and spaces. Remixing here mainly means the content of the course on MOOC are both  within the course and out of the course, which make the content more abundant but also being questioned. Re-purposing emphasizes the content on MOOC need to meet individual's needs. The last one is feeding forward, and it highlights the sharing character of MOOC. 
    Based on the four disciplines and its operations in these years, MOOCs' benefits and also problems are talked a lot by some scholars and students. At first, it is convenient for students who have access to a MOOC learning on the Internet; second, MOOC is really rich in content, and it has a lot of opinions from students who may come from different cultures and backgrounds; third, you can use a lot of tools to assist your study on MOOC,like twitter and blog; fourth,you can break the limitation of time zone and physical boundaries; fifth, the content can be shared by all of peopple, and so on (Benefits and Challenges of a MOOC).Meanwhile, some arguments about MOOC still exist, for example,  a part of the content on MOOC is created by many students, the qualities are questioned；not all of the people have access to MOOC, it needs devices and digital literacy;MOOC can't provide a real face-to-face class for conversationS, so it reduceS the communication opportunities between teacher and students to some extent; at last, in this kind of informal classes, it needs people's self-control to learn well (Benefits and Challenges of a MOOC). 
    In my opinion, MOOC is a good way of learning, it definitely can help people get knowledge even degree, but it is hard to replace the traditional course. On the one hand, the acceptance of MOOC is relatively not high, not only because less people can use it, also because the informal courses weaken the value of the degree. In short, MOOC is really helpful and useful, but currently say, it mainly is a assistant way of study.
    Happily, I have registered Coursera for the course- The History and Character of Ancient China. I am so curious about Chinese history, and I hope I can find something different between Chinese course and American course on MOOC during study and interaction with our classmates in this semester.

Introduce Myself and My Interest in MOOCs #AHE602

My name is Yanyi Li. My friends just call me Yanyi. I am a Chinese girl. I am studying in University of Alabama, majoring in communication studies. This is my second year in UA, and I plan to graduate in this semester, so it will be a tough semester. I am easygoing, and really enjoy the time spend with my dear friends and families. I am a foreign student in America now, so I am trying my best to adapt myself to life here. 

After my graduation, I wish I can find a job in one university. Therefore, I choose this MOOCs course. I think MOOCs are more and more popular in these days, and it helps a lot of people to study on the Internet. This way of learning will become a hot topic and important tool in the future higher education area. MOOC is more developed than traditional class, but it also has its problems.As a result, I choose this course and try to know MOOC better. I hope through this course, I can learn how to create a MOOC and know how to use it more fully and effectively.