MOOC Research Initiative holds first conference to discuss early findings

On December 5-6, 2013, over 200 MOOC researchers and practitioners convened to discuss the first findings from the MOOC Research Initiative. The main observation was that MOOCs have yet to live up to the hype. Given that the initial promise was to revolutionize global online education, the shortfall is hardly surprising.
The conference opened with a speech from George Siemens, who taught one of the first MOOCs. He addressed head-on the failure of MOOCs in relation to the media hype, but insisted that there is still a lot of potential in open online learning. The keynote speaker was Jim Groom, who argued that online tools should empower learners to create their own learning environments and pathways. More...