The Future of Ubiquitous Learning by Begoña Gros Kinshuk & Marcelo Maina

Author:Begoña Gros, Kinshuk & Marcelo Maina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg

7.4.2 Structured and Social Learning: Open Courses

In contrast to xMOOCs, there are other models for open courses that focus more on social and collaborative learning. One model is the cMOOC which are connectivist MOOCs. They are sometimes described as chaotic which implies a lack of structure, but what they offer, in contrast to an xMOOC, is an opportunity for the learner to apply their own learning goals and to choose the kind of engagement that suits them. The focus is less on consuming content but on participating in learning activities in a very personal context. These courses do tend to have an overlying structure but rely on learners having the capacity, and understanding of their own learning needs, to take advantage of learning in a networked way. The key for these courses is the connectivity which, in turn, emphasises learners actively creating and contributing content to share with others.

There is unlikely to be only one ‘platform’ where activities take place—emphasising that learners use technology platforms where they feel most comfortable. Discussions may take place on a social network such as Twitter as well as in a Google Hangout or on a Facebook group space. Therefore, the course is distributed across the Web and encourages participants to aggregate content, remix and/or repurpose it (create) and share it back (contribute). An example of this course was the Change 1125 course around instructional technology which took place from September 2011 to May 2012.

There are also smaller models of open courses that are structured around an existing validated course. These bring together paying registered students studying for accreditation with open students participating at no financial cost. This kind of course challenges and disrupts traditional models, requiring teaching staff to redesign curricula, take on new and different roles and change the relationship between learner and teacher. Two courses that adopt this model are Digital Storytelling26 (DS106) at University of Mary Washington in the USA and the Open Media Classes27 at the Coventry University in the UK. Both of these courses involve open students and professionals from around the world who take part in creating, sharing, remixing and reusing content in collaborative activities using open technologies. This adds an extra dimension for the registered students who are campus-based who have opportunities to collaborate with working professionals around the world, create new personal and professional networks and engage in ‘authentic’ real-world activities.

The open courses described here present challenges for students and faculty as participation requires good digital literacy and active use of a range of digital technologies (Littlejohn et al. 2012a). Well-developed digital literacies are critical for the exploration of digital identity and management of Web presence, digital storytelling, licensing as well as curation of content. In these circumstances, learner/teacher roles change and faculty (sometimes) do not behave as experts but learn alongside students. In the DS106 course, anyone participating can create tutorials or guides when they introduce a new technology, anyone can submit an assignment idea. All are expected to contribute and provide feedback to others.

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