After reading these two assigned readings, I have noticed terms like course structure, decentralized pathway, distributed pathway, massive open online course (MOOCs), E-learning online education, etc. Among all these terms, MOOCs is the term that interests me the most, and it was the term discussed in both the assigned readings. I first read about it in the assigned reading named Teaching online – A guide to theory research and practice. In this reading, I learned that Dave Cormier called MOOCs, and MOOCs are part of the open learning pathway. Then I learned more about MOOCs in the reading named Openness and Education, a beginner’s guide.
By reading this paper about teaching online, I also learned the difference between close and open courses and defining whether I am taking a close or open course. For example, EDCI339 started with our school website (bright space), which only opens to registered students and staff, and we can only get to EDCI339’s page by early registration, and this makes EDCI339 a close learning pathway. However, when we switch everything on social platforms like WordPress, mattermost, EDCI339 becomes an open learning pathway which means everyone with adequate facilities and refined skills to use the internet can access our class and learn.
However, I am still struggling about whether classes like EDCI339 could count as MOOCs. Firstly, I know that EDCI 339 must be a distributed pathway because there is no course center, and it is open because everyone can get into our class. Then, MOOCs talks about the massive online open course, which means course materials will be entirely online, and anyone can get access to them. So, in my conclusion, courses like EDCI339 are MOOCs courses.
By the benefits of taking MOOCs courses, I think the first one is that we can get inspiring support from the people in society who joined our course through the internet. I remembered that there was an example about MOOCs courses that talk about inspiring support. There was a boy who was participating in an online open course online, and he encouraged the online classroom by using his guitar to play a song. This reminded me about what I can do outside of the University. I sometimes get into some online open courses, but I never participate in any conversations because I thought I might not be very helpful. But after reading about this example, it reminds me that I don’t have to be correct on everything, sometimes a good chat is also inspiring. Also, if I am a teacher, I would prefer to make my class a MOOC because my students are getting new ideas from their peers; they can also be inspired by people who are participating in the course through the internet.
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