Analyse an online course (MOOCs)
(1) Explore the catalogues of courses on five MOOCs platforms:
Futurelearn.com (The Open University),
lagunita.stanford.edu (Stanford online).
(2) Choose a course that has already started, and “enrol” in it. For this you may create or use your existing accounts or use the “student-explorer” courtesy login (see the Week 4-5 discussion head, BbConnect).
(3) Analyse the course content and activities and write a short critical overview focusing on the following key parameters:
(a) Delivery format(s) and the platform(s) implemented to deliver the course. Indicate how the course is scheduled and delivered (on term basis, self-paced, or differently). Whether the course uses one LMS for delivery or combines several platforms?
(b) Course structure. How the the course structure is presented visually and logically? Does it resemble a linear story, a hierarchical construction, a net, a circle or something else? Whether this structure look pedagogically appropriate for the course?
(c) Learning activities and guidelines. What learners are doing for learning, and what are the results of their learning? What digital formats for the course material are used to organize the learning process (texts, video, audio, computer simulations, digital learning objects, or other)? What guidelines regulate the learning process? Whether the content is released gradually (by weeks) or all available from the beginning to the end?
(d) Discussions organization. Whether the discussions are scheduled to be conducted at particular moments in the course or some other organizational mechanism is used? Whether the discussions are on the same site with the course content, or designed on a different platform? Whether the discussions’ tool allows creating multiple threads in one topic, or only one thread per topic? Do you think these differences in the discussions’ tools functionalities influence the results of learning?
(e) Forms of feedback and Evaluation methods. What kinds of assignments, tests, practicums are implemented for evaluating the learning results? Is any certification or other types of recognition procedure implemented?
(f) Instructor’s involvement. How much the instructor(s) presence is visible in delivering the course material and providing feedback?
(4) Write a critical overview of a course design (from the MOOC of your choice), contribute to the Weeks 4 – 5 discussion, (BbConnect).