Why MOOC?
As an MSc Digital Marketing student at University of Southampton, I have been asked to participate in MOOC. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course which encourages learners to share their thoughts and respond to others. After 3 weeks of participating in the Digital Marketing course, I found the MOOC is more useful than I first expected.
#1 I have learned new topics that I have never thought of before. Although the Internet is a huge database that we can search for anything, it is full of floating information that I don’t know what to look for. The MOOC raises issues and topics like what’s happening in 21st century with some basic explanations. There are many things we do or know but not notice and concern enough. For instance, ‘gamification’ has been in our everyday life for a while. How many of you bought Happy Meal to get the minions? How many of you used to play Angry Birds? Have you ever thought why these things exist? Everything exists for a reason. I use MOOC as the start to go through some new theories or practices before I do further research.
#2 As the MOOC encourages learners to join the discussions, I have developed my own ideas in doing so. Sometimes, I miss the chance to participate in class because I couldn’t think and speak out in time for discussion. I feel it a bit difficult to jump in during the discussion in class. Plus, the class time is limited so I couldn’t full develop my thoughts. By participating in the MOOC, I have more time to think it through and respond in the discussion.
#3 Since the MOOC is available anywhere for anybody for free of charge, the ideas can be from anyone around the world with completely diverse demographic, economic and politic backgrounds. There are diverse perspectives I learned from participating in the MOOC. It benefits more or less to some people depending on their needs and preferences.
Who would mostly benefit from the MOOC? Online courses are often offered to faraway learners who do not have sufficient access to education nearby. More interestingly, the MOOC does not only benefit to those but also leaners who eager to learn and understand different perspectives from people from different backgrounds.
MOOC participants’ locations
Moreover, for non-native English speaker might have some listening difficulties but able to read and write can greatly gain from taking parts in the MOOC. There are subtitles and transcripts for every video, participants can carefully read through and make some notes as the course goes on. Listening skill can actually be developed through listen to the video together with reading subtitles.
Lastly, those who need time to think and prepare what they want to say. As the time is not limited like in traditional classrooms, participants can take more time developing their ideas before sharing them to others. Having time to think is crucial to expand the ideas. Many times, I couldn’t come up with ideas to share in class but once the class ends, I know what I wanted to say. Therefore, MOOC allows room for learners to think and develop ideas more than discussion in the classroom.
Nevertheless, I prefer traditional classroom to the MOOC. As I’m a student in an international institution, my physical classroom is full of international students from around the world. I like the feeling that we interact in class where we get immediate response. The classroom atmosphere is more personal and warm than taking a course at home in front of computer that sometimes I find it quite easy to be interrupted. MOOC will be an additional course where I can study at anytime anywhere apart from the face-to-face interaction in traditional classrooms.
What do you think could happen to the education in the next ten years?
This is so true. As I am non-native speaker, I am confident to debate in MOOCs more than in classroom. I like MOOCs in terms of flexibility and have more idea from other learners’ comments. However, some topics are very difficult to understand even read comment. Anyway, it’s a good education channel but just for part time only.
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As MOOC allows us more time to develop ideas so it’s a good practice for us to think through and be critical in our comments. I agree that i couldn’t understand some topics, especially the analytics part as i don’t have experience on that. However, I take that session as a start to find out more on the Internet. 🙂
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Agree with your situation that how MOOCs lessen the class intensity. I hope MOOCs will help us develop argumentative discussion and that we can improve our skill to participate in our classes.
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Definitely. We have learned to develop critical arguments through engaging with others on the MOOC. The last part to really participate in class is only the confidence to speak out. That’s it. 🙂
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I really like the part you wrote about how MOOC also let us learn from other learners, not just the educators. I think that’s a strong strength of this educational model, isn’t it? I found myself getting a better understanding every time I read others comments. And sometimes, reading other comments even help me to come up with a new idea or issue for discussion. Did that happen to you too?
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That’s exactly what happened to me. Reading others’ comments does give me new idea and sometimes even changes my point of view. My view of seeing things become broader as I understand others more. I like the fact that we learn one topic but we can get the ideas from many perspectives. That’s why I feel like we can get a lot from participating and engaging with others.
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Love reading your blog ! Since I have read some of your articles, I’ve learned something as well and just notice that yeah that’s the idea of MOOC. I do not only learning from what you wrote, but also from other perspectives.
But I actually like the atmosphere in the classroom where everyone can interact to each other and get the the ideas of others face-to-face. I think I am a type of learner who can focus better in the classroom because I can ask and get the answers right the way and see the reaction from teachers or classmate not with the letters but their voice and emotional expression. So… I prefer traditional classroom rather than MOOC since I do not like to read !
But here I pop up with a question since you should know that Thai students are very shy or they hesitate to interact or participate in class, Do you think applying MOOC to Thai educational system will help encourage and improve the Thai student to express their thoughts or participate more ?
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I think MOOC would work really well in early steps to encourage students to develop ideas. As it’s Thai culture where students don’t really participate or speak out to the professors in the classroom, they often ignore the lecture and just sit there and wait for the class to end. As a result, many times students come to the lecture, but they didn’t get to develop their thinking towards the class materials. Therefore, I think MOOC would help on this and after they are confident in sharing their ideas, they will be more confident in contributing in the classroom.
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I agreed with your point of view that you can ask and get the answers right the way and see the reaction from teachers or classmate not with the letters but their voice and emotional expression. However, I do not agree with applying MOOC to Thai education because it is not an immediate interaction, it might leave students unclear. Instead of apply MOOC, I think the better idea is to encourage them to have more guts to ask in the classroom.
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We definitely cannot rely on the MOOC itself by leaving the traditional classroom behind. The MOOC should be only an additional education tool or the first step for students to develop ideas.
I believe in order for MOOC to work more effectively, gamification should be applied. What I mean is that the response time (for clarification purpose) should be set (for educators or staffs to help clarify) and there should be something that attract participants to engage and response to each others.
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I’ve never known about MOOCs before and I think this is the interesting instrument that can help many students who have same situation about participation in class like you. For me, sometimes i feel like it’s too difficult to catch up the lecturer’s ideas and try to describe my opinion in the same time during the class. As a high school teacher, that i used to be, most of students felt embarrass to discussion in class, they feared their answers were incorrect. MOOCs can be the better way for students to feel more comfortable to share their ideas, practice, and prepare themselves for next class.
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Thank you for sharing your experience. I totally agree with you. We can use MOOC in first step for students who are shy and are not confident with their ideas. As there’s no right or wrong in MOOC, students are encourages to share what they think. By participating more and more in MOOC, students should gain more confidence in sharing their ideas and that skill could be used in class later on. 🙂
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MOOCs have never heard of it before, but after reading your articles this program seem to be very interesting and useful. Leaners can search for more information and knowledge that they are interested in. Seeing and understanding from a wider perspective can actually ligthen up with all the new ideas and innovated thoughts, unlike the old-school education. However, the traditional classroom creates the warmly, friendly studies environments which students can interest between each other, and also with their teacher. I think it would be great if all learners could use both MOOCs and studying in class combining them up, and gained as much knowledge as possible.
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I agree that MOOC cannot completely replace traditional classroom, but be an extra space for education. Classroom gives students warm and friendly atmosphere where they can interact with friends and lecturer. Plus, it would be much easier to build connection on face-to-face basis.
However, MOOC allows us to learn from people whom we wouldn’t normally meet in persons. MOOC absolutely breaks down the geographical barriers for education.
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Yes, one of the MOOCs advantages is that it enables us to see the content via transcription or substitle, so it is good for non native English. I like this function, especially when I missed in interpreting the content, I used to look at the text.
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That’s true. Subtitle doesn’t useful only when you missed a word but also when you want to practice spelling and learn new vocabularies.
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This is so new to me ,and it was triggerred my interest. Wherever you have problems about the study you can surely benefit from it. Those activities allow us to exercise our thoughts which is the main purpose of studying. i would love to involve in that atmosphere too if i have a chance 🙂
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This course is free! https://www.futurelearn.com/ you should check it out. There are many courses available to meet your interests. Plus, you are encouraged to share your thoughts with others and at the same time, you can learn more by reading through other comments as well. 🙂 Feel free to let me know how it goes!
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What you said is true. MOOC helps non-native students like us for sharing ideas that we cannot express in our class. One thing that I like MOOC is that there is no “right or wrong” on our opinion. For me, I don’t have much marketing knowledge, so I cannot discuss right after someone talk about their opinion.I can share my experience for my working and also with the others. I think what we had learn is reading from the comment and discussing from that idea.
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I believe since we are all from different background (either social, jobs, political, or cultural background), we definitely can have different perspectives and ideas towards some particular issue. MOOC allows us to share our thoughts as well as learn to accept others’ which will definitely be useful in the future.
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This is the first time that I hear about ‘ MOOC ’ , I don’t have any experience about it. After I read this article I think MOOC is a good new learning method. We can interchange the knowledge and ideas with people around the world only just we have the internet. It makes us see new view points and new opinions. It’s a new way to show ideas for someone who dare not to question or give an opinion in class.
By the way it is not like class study which students can discuss with teachers or classmates and see the reactions from them. Including other interactions more than reading through the comments.
So I think it is better if the learners can use both; study in the class and use MOOC for learning in addition.
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You know, I think the problem with online education is that it tends to be monologue-ish. The teacher, even one who responds to students via email, can never have the immediacy of contact like the teacher in the classroom. Therefore, just like you, I still pretty much prefer traditional classroom to MOOC.
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Traditional classroom are better in terms of interacting and get immediate feedback or discussion with others. However, when the classroom is not diverse, MOOC would be a better place to gain different perspectives from many other participants who have way different backgrounds.
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Actually, I partly agree with Nicha as well as you Chanya. It quite obvious that nothing could really replace face-to-face interaction within the classroom. I agree with Nicha on the fact that she value an immediate reply and you can expand through the discussion spontaneously. On the other hand, the MOOC also encourage us a student to sleep over the issues, so may be it raise some more interesting topics after that class. Additionally, the MOOC also lessen the barrier for shy students that do not brave enough to break into the class discussion so balancing both way would benefit most, don’t you think?
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@immook That’s what something MOOC cannot do. We cannot see others’ first reaction as well as their facial expressions. Plus, if they don’t understand what we commented or our comments are not interesting for them, they will just skip and read other comments they found useful or interesting. That’s when the communication got disconnected. However, like you said, combining both methods seem to be the best way as both contains some benefits and drawbacks.
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