Net Traveller: MOOCs with Books at CPUG Canberra Tonight

Thursday, April 04, 2013

I will be giving a short talk on "MOOCS with Books" at the Canberra Python Users Group (CPUG), 7pm tonight, 4 April 2013 . The meeting is free and is in the famous Room N101 in the Australian National University's Computer Science and Information Technology Building, North Road, Canberra. As this is a short talk it will be more like my "MOOCs with Books at BarCamp Canberra", than the extended scholarly version I have planned as "MOOCs with Books in Colombo: Syncronisation of Large Scale Asynchronous e-Learning.

Massive: 100,000 students or more. Australia's large university has less than 50,000 students.
Open: No scholastic or financial barrier to enrollment. Materials may also be open educational resources.
On-line: Materials delivered and students interact via the Internet.
Course: Similar in size to an Australian university subject of about a 12 week semester one quarter full time student load (a US course). But does not provide a credential on completion.

Massive: Systems and software need to scale to deliver materials, provide automated student support and ways for students to interact.
Open: Wider range of students will need more help. Ways for students to find their group needed.
On-line: Ways to support students who have limited and intermittent Internet access are required.
Course: Will need to integrate with conventional university programs or create a whole new on-line university system. Ways to credential students on-line required.

Books: Course content provided in a down-loadable standalone structured module (textbook), using existing e-Book formats (web, Moodle Book Module, EPUB, IMS Content Package).
Formative Feedback: Short tests can be used to aid learning by student.
Groups: Students can be formed into groups for mutual support, on-line and off-line.

On-line courses tend to present material in small chunks which the designer decided
A book provides a carefully structured set of materials for the course, which can be used off-line.

Massive: Develop plug-ins and upgrades for free open source systems, such as Moodle and Mahara, to allow the to handle millions of students.
Open: Develop software which uses existing e-learning and e-book standards (web, Moodle Book Module, EPUB, IMS Content Package, SCORM Package).
On-line: Develop off-line support for e-learning, using mobile devices.
Course: Develop software which supports an integrated program, course module development process, not just delivery of isolated courses, so students get an education which meets community standards.

Net Traveller