ELT article published by Prof. Jonathan Acua at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.

com/

The Dark Side of MOOCs:

Are they that bad?
MOOCs have come to supply educational services for people who did not have the possibility to get access to specialized or higher education. However, many scholarly and academic are not sure of MOOCs good impact on education. These specialists in learning point out some of the issues that need to be perfected to get better and more positive results: MOOCs massiveness, divergence with bLearning, and lack of credited value. A MOOC, by its single nature, implies massiveness; but whats wrong with a great amount of students in a course? The fact that a MOOC gets to have too many class members implies the lack of student rapport on the instructors side. It is simply impossible that an instructor (or group of instructors) deal with 2,000 students, or more, at the same time. This excessive number of class participants, no doubt, leads to the absence of student interaction, an essential element in education considered by many detractors of the use of MOOCs. That is why, limiting the class size, or

ELT article published by Prof. Jonathan Acua at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/

opening several course simultaneously- can be a way to give room to some student-student and student-teacher interaction. Experts, then, need to agree on the magical number of students in a MOOC.

Cuban (2013)

For some education scholars, MOOCs are a synonym of eLearning, and not of bLearning. eLearning, as most of us are already accustomed to, implies some sort of guidance by using video tutorials, instructional audios, and reading on websites or electronic documents. The former two tools can be great for visual and aural learners, but what happens to those students who lack these learning styles? Many of these students whose learning styles repertoires do not include visual and aural learning become the candidates for dropping out of MOOCs. eLearning (or distant education) is not for everyone. The lack of teacher/instructor feedback is demotivating for many students, no matter how many supplementary videos for instruction you provide. MOOCs with some kind of bLearning orientation can become more beneficial for students. The third drawback in the use of MOOCs is its unaccredited nature. If compared to a webinar, i.e., a MOOC is not recognized by higher education institutions; however, some great learning can take place for ones professional development and life with no need for accreditation.

ELT article published by Prof. Jonathan Acua at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/

Participating in a webinar simply implies the sharing of ideas by a speaker, and later on, the application of those ideas by the participants in their working practices. As we can see, MOOCs are not the panacea for the cost of higher education fees either, but a great way to enlarge ones PLNs (Professional Learning Networks) as a webinar can be. If anyone is interested in signing up for a MOOC, s/he should be encouraged to do so bearing in mind s/he is trained to maximize their professional performance and not to get credits for their higher education. Being against MOOCs is like not giving people the chance to access to some sort of education to better perform at work. As Jeff A. Roth pointed out on his article, 4 Steps for Successful eLearning Implementation, By conducting a short survey, you can evaluate how the features, compatibility, and design are useful to everyone involved. Members of the MOOCs community and experts in education should help this educational initiative become better and more successful.

To fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, its advisable to research and expand these areas:

ELT article published by Prof. Jonathan Acua at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/

1 2 3 4 5

Whats a MOOC? MOOCS and higher educational learning MOOCs and PLNs Reasons to take a MOOC MOOCs and credited courses

Professor Jonathan Acua-Solano ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica Curricular Developer at CCCN Senior ELT Professor at Universidad Latina Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in Central America For further comments or suggestions, reach me at: @jonacuso Twitter jonacuso@gmail.com Gmail

Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at the university are: 1. http://bin-02.blogspot.com/ 3. http://bin-06.blogspot.com/ 2. http://bin-04.blogspot.com/ 4. Computering Applications in Education

ELT article published by Prof. Jonathan Acua at http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/

Cuban, L. (2013) The big misunderstanding about MOOCs. Washington Post, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/24/thegreat-divide-over-moocs/ Roth, J. (2013) 4 Steps for Successful eLearning Implementation. Available at http://interactyx.com/social-learning-blog/4-steps-forsuccessful-elearning-implementation/#.USzB__Zft-E.twitter