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MOOC as a tool for teacher training

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Digital skills are an important element in the educational environment, their development and integration should be a priority in order to address modern society demands.

This article forms integral part of that course. Our fourth edition has been already launched so you enrol!. “sMOOC Step by Step” is a free Massive Open Online Course – MOOC is being made available by ECO, which is a European project based on Open Educational Resources (OER), that gives free access to a list of MOOCs in 6 languages, in most languages via Closed Captions (via YouTube subtitles).

The objective of this article is to give an overview about how a MOOC for teachers influences the development of their digital skills.

Results show that MOOCs have the potential to develop digital skills to use OER and to solve information problems (especially the ones related to communication and project planning); and visualizing a practical application of course content increases participants’ overall satisfaction.

Increased digital and technical skills MOOC are the next step in the evolution of on line learning. But where e Learning was first organized and confined to the boundaries of an institutional Learning Management System (LMS), MOOC made the on line courses open to a global, international public.

ExperieTeacher toolsnced teachers deploy multiple teaching strategies. They are experts in teaching; they know how to transform any content and any dynamic into an engaging learner experience. And most importantly, teachers understand where their learners come from and where they need to be heading. As such teachers, use creative learning actions which they pull out of their pedagogical backpack.

MOOC are the next step in the evolution of on line learning. But where e Learning was first organized and confined to the boundaries of an institutional Learning Management System (LMS), MOOC made the on line courses open to a global, international public.

There is however three essential factors needed to be able to follow MOOC: on line access, and digital skills to know how to work in the on line learning environment, and the capacity for self-regulated learning.

Technological skills:
With the addition of social media tools (= more peer-to-peer interactions and more dialogue in general) and mobile or ubiquitous options to allow the learners to stay tuned to all the interactions happening in a MOOC. This means that the course is ideally ubiquitous, allowing students to access the course and its interactions with mobile and non-mobile devices.

Digital skills:
More Digital skills are needed as MOOCs can make use of a variety of social media tools and all the latest on line tools. This inevitably results in a need for the participants to practice and acquire new skills. MOOC are also not standardized and when investigating all current MOOC platforms, one can see that there is a difference in pedagogical approach, design of the user interface and the embedding of social media tools, which results in a challenge to really understand all the options within different MOOC platforms.

Self-regulated learning:
Within MOOCs learning increasingly becomes the responsibility of the learner. Sometimes that responsibility can be limited to the learner having to take responsibility for their self-directed or self-regulated learning where the learner take their learning into their own hands and regulate their learning using personally constructed learning strategies. This self-regulated learning is a complex skill to acquire.
It is not only complex on an individual level, but also on a group level involving different teaching skills to scaffold and mold the self-regulated skills.

Enhancing these self-regulated skills is one of the many challenges MOOC teachers face, as MOOCs gather a very diversified group of learners.The same can be said about the expectations and abilities in teachers. In order for MOOCs to work, it is pivotal to understand and tune what teachers are expecting.

Rethinking assessment:
In MOOC new assessment options are now provided ranging from mandatory participation in discussion forums (with clear rubrics on what is expected from the participants), over student produced content using digital tools such as YouTube and Facebook, to peer-to-peer reviewing.

There are also a set of newly, automated assessment options being developed. eRubrics are also an assessment tool that gets increasing attention especially in the competency based educational models which emphasize student’s self-regulation skills.

Increased success for students from vulnerable socio-economic classes
Due to its complex interactions and prior knowledge, MOOCs risk to increase the digital divide between students from different socio-economic classes. However, recent research from Jiang et al. (2014) have provided proof that with the right approach MOOC can be used to strengthen students from more vulnerable socio-economic classes.

Scaffolded teacher development:
The complexity in new teaching and learning skills is a reality within MOOCs. This poses a problem for both the educational institutes, as well as for the teachers. But there is an approach which allows teachers to gradually become expert at MOOCs, while staying on top of their field at the same time: MOOC blending.

In order to provide teachers with MOOC confidence, it is crucial that their digital and technological skills are enhanced, and that a gradual exposure to MOOC is planned within the educational institute. This will allow both teachers and learners to understand and build upon current MOOC pedagogies and interactions, so teachers can get the most out of this new learning and teaching format.

Are you ready for new challenges? If you would like to become the instructor of your own MOOC, after completed “sMOOC Step by Step” please apply to “Become an e-teacher”. We can’t wait to see what you create. – Team UoMan.

Note: Article idea and some texts are taken from:
http://oro.open.ac.uk/44528/3/MOOC%20and%20teacher%20developmen%20final.pdf
https://repositorio.itesm.mx/ortec/handle/11285/581442

sMOOC Bac2Sciences

The Bac2Sciences sMOOC team keeps on collecting proofs of recognition for its work and it is well deserved!

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The sMOOC, Bac2Sciences was developed by female teachers who are devoted to their students with the idea to allow participants to revise their “baccalauréat”. The team consists of geographically distant teachers, from various disciplines, with complementary profiles and a common motivation to make their students succeed.

Thus, while proposing this MOOC, they have enabled their students to self-train and work together in the co-construction of knowledge on a common device.

This MOOC has been a real success and its creators are very proud!

sans-titre

Over the last few months they have been collecting proofs of recognition for their work:

  • A favorite at Ludovia#13
  • Finalist at the e-Education Symposium
  • A multiple selection at the “Innovative Teachers’ Forum”
  • Representations in different conferences and events: Educatec-Educatice, Clic 2016, Ludovia#13 …

At our level, we are also very proud we have been able to accompany them. Indeed, the ECO project allowed them to benefit both from the creation space on its platform and from our technical and pedagogical support.

Congratulations again to such a beautiful team!

As a reminder, the sMOOC content is still accessible here

MOOC project

Reasons to develop your own MOOC

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To MOOC or Not to MOOC?. There are plenty of great reasons to embrace MOOCs. Teaching a MOOC is a great experience with lots of practical value. Here are some reasons to consider teaching a MOOC:

AcadeMOOC projectmic research
Research can be a catalyst for teaching a MOOC. This is a tough area because MOOCs are so new, there are almost limitless avenues to explore.

MOOCs give teachers a chance to see how other teachers work. There is a value of learning about pedagogy from observing other teachers. If they are good, you might decide to emulate them; if they are bad, you might try to avoid repeating their mistakes.

Professional experience
It allowed you to observe how they are designed and taught, and to learn from how other participants react.

On line learning often prevents the instructor from being as spontaneous as they can in a face-to-face class, and although it requires a lot of pre-planning of material, instructors can still find creative ways of responding to participant interests and requests. You can develop new skills about how to make a video feel more interactive and dynamic for your students.

By comparing the four different MOOCs, you can see the “best practices” of MOOC pedagogy used across the courses.

Re-live the student experience
Some instructors want to teach a MOOC many times over with the goal of creating a super-efficient, super-effective learning experience.

MOOCs allow teachers to find out what it is like to be on the receiving end of eLearning today. You may be using some technology in your teaching, but you may not have experienced this learning as a student before.Re-live the student experience – on line!

Learn by doing
A very common purpose for wanting to teach a MOOC is simply that—to teach a MOOC. Educators are inquisitive by nature and their interest in MOOCs is an extension of that curiosity.

To learn something new, some people would traditionally invest time and effort into reading a book. Others would browse the Internet for resources.

However, if you prefer social learning to the solitary pursuit of reading a book (after all, as an adult learner and teacher, you probably already read a lot of books and other material as it is!), or if you feel you need a little bit of scaffolding when dipping into a new topic, MOOCs are an option. So, you can learn something new in a structured way.

Whereas previously, you could follow an entire course’s lectures by downloading lectures from iTunes U, for example, the benefit of a MOOC is that you can do assignments or quizzes to validate your learning, but doing the assignments forced you to reflect on and analyses the topics in ways I would not have done independently.

Socialize the learning experience
The forums and peer assessments can also socialize the learning experience for you, enriching the depth and breadth of your learning.

Find well-chosen (mostly free) resources on a topic or sub-topic.

While you can find all sorts of discussion forums on line for different interest groups, those on MOOCs have some of the most diverse groups of people you can ever see.

The discussions can range from directly related to the class syllabus to completely learner-generated topics. You can join several community conversations about topics that interest you.

Because the courses are time-limited, the conversations can be more intense (time-wise) than on other discussion forums where responses can take weeks or months.
You will find that your classmates dove deep into how that related to their experiences.

Depending on the MOOCS you could find that many of the community discussions are focused on educational and psychological aspects.

Personal learning goals
MOOCs vary widely in quality. There is no reason to dismiss MOOCs simply because they are on line, are delivered to the masses or are free. And there is also no reason to glorify a MOOC based on these same characteristics.

As adult learners with personal learning goals, teachers can approach MOOCs in an intentional manner and make use of their potential.

I would suggest that any educator with even a remote interest in e learning for professional development should not miss out on this opportunity. I hope to encourage my own students (themselves teachers) to try out a MOOC. Meanwhile, happy MOOCing!

MOOC is really all about you. 
If you would like to become the instructor of your own MOOC, after completed “sMOOC Step by Step” please apply to “Become an e-teacher”. We can’t wait to see what you create. – Team UoMan.

Note: Article idea and some texts are taken from:

http://blog.canvaslms.com/blog/bid/310026/Why-teach-a-MOOC#sthash.hkZp87U1.dpbs and http://moocnewsandreviews.com/5-reasons-teachers-should-dip-into-moocs-for-professional-development-2