There are a number of important trends in online learning. Georgia Teacher Open Online training highlighted three such trends - mobile learning, gamification, and Massive Open Online Courses. I have been asked to describe what I think the most important trend in online learning is. Hands down, it is the MOOC.
Mobile learning is simply online learning with more mobility of place. There is really nothing new here - just the frustration of trying to make web sites and links compatible across more platforms.
Gamification is again nothing new and most of the gamified education games don't provide the depth of learning that I think should be required to even merit the title.
MOOCs, however, are where it is at. For the past two years I have been a huge fan of EdX. This service provides high quality instruction from top universities around the world. The education level is serious. What is lacking for these services is a personalized guide to get people into the right MOOC. While I have had great success with MOOCs, I think that a lot of people sign up for courses that sound cool to them without the requisite background to successfully complete the course. Someone has to come up with a way to test the student's knowledge and direct to other MOOCs or online resources to get the necessary knowledge to meet his learning objectives. This is the future of online education - a college adviser for MOOCs and other open source materials.
Personally, I love the old fashioned archived courses with video lectures. MIT OCW has some of the best. But, the future requires the education be more interactive than those static models. MOOCs provide the same course structure with course interaction.
No comments:
Post a Comment