MOOCs and Student Support

By Geoff Cain. I read an article this week that I found via Stephen Downe's blog that is from the eLearning Africa News Portal called "The Underlying Inequality of MOOCs" by Alicia Mitchell. The main issue that Mitchell has with MOOCs is an old argument against all online education: the "digital divide." Unlike the education writers of the 1990s, she looks at the issues of poverty and connectivity and says that we have to be mindful that not everyone has access or the same means and skills that those of us in more privileged parts of the world may have. I do not argue that there is not a digital divide, I just don't think stopping online learning is a great solution to that problem. She does not make the leap that many have in the past with a "therefore," online learning is not viable or should be curtailed etc. I actually agree with her and my "therefore" is that, broadly, we need to continue to work for economic justice and universal education.  Africa is a hot bed of online learning, open education resources, and innovation specifically because of the problems discussed in her article. And my more focused "therefore" is say this is exactly why we need a MOOC to help students "learn how to learn." That is what we were getting at when we created "DE 101" - an free, two-week, fully online orientation to online learning. That was in a "traditional" online course format. The one I am working on here at Humboldt State University will be a MOOC called "eLearning 101." Read more...