Josh Kim wrote three predictions at Inside Higher Ed for the EDUCAUSE 2013 conference, and I particularly agree with the basis of #2: Prediction 2: Adaptive Learning Platforms Will Be the Toast of the Party Everyone will want to talk to Knewton. The ASU / Pearson / Knewton partnership is a huge deal. Knewton has the […]
Combining MOOC Student Patterns Graphic with Stanford Analysis
In part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this series of posts on MOOC student patterns, I shared a description of five student patterns emerging from open-enrollment MOOCs (excluding those with an associated student fee) based on anecdotal data. In part 4 I compared the overall course completion pattern against an MIT study of the first edX […]
Lack of online course evaluation leads to accreditation warning
ACCJC, the accrediting commission behind the City College of San Francisco crisis, issued an warning to Honolulu Community College in February of this year, with a report required by October 15. As described in Hawai’i News Now: Honolulu Community College has been placed on warning accreditation status by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior […]
Two MOOC curriculum announcements in one week
In two apparently unrelated announcements, both MIT and Wharton announced they were moving beyond just courses and putting significant parts of their curriculum into MOOC platforms, both with identity verification. MIT is putting several undergraduate sequences online through MITx (their implementation of edX), while Wharton business school is putting a “foundation series” of first-year courses […]
Layoffs and reorganization at Blackboard
Bill Flook, who covers the DC technology scene for Business Journals, just interviewed Blackboard CEO Jay Bhatt about last week’s layoff. The full article can be found here. From a quick read, it looks like Blackboard is executing on two key priorities: Trimming the fat caused by years of acquisitions and redundant operations; and Completing […]
MOOC Discussion Forums: barrier to engagement?
Robert McGuire wrote an article for Campus Technology, Building a Sense of Community in MOOCs, that touches on an important topic – is the centralized discussion forum a barrier to student engagement? But more students can also mean more isolation within the crowd. “Online classes can be really lonely places for students if they don’t feel […]
SJSU research report confirms MOOCs are online courses
By reading the SJSU research report (download actual report here), one item that really hits me is that however different the scaling model is for MOOCs, they are still online courses and have similar success factors. I am not trying to minimize the value of the report by the title of this post, because there is […]