{"id":4738,"date":"2016-06-10T08:51:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T13:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=4738"},"modified":"2016-06-10T12:47:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T17:47:30","slug":"can-netflix-inspire-moocs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2016\/06\/10\/can-netflix-inspire-moocs\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Netflix Inspire MOOCs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Netflix model of customized, easy to use selection could help revitalize the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) industry, according to Jonathan Keats at Wired. <\/a>\u00a0Since bursting onto the education scene in 2011, MOOCs have experienced both an\u00a0increase in participants and\u00a0in\u00a0dropouts. As low as 5%\u00a0of MOOC students are actually completing the courses that they have signed up for. This is a clear frustration for\u00a0professors<\/a>\u00a0and producers who have put so much effort\u00a0into developing this new form of distance education.<\/p>\n

\"MOOCbetterwordbubble\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Keats suggests that MOOCs focus too much on job training, writing “the rapid retreat of MOOCs into vocational banality represents a squandered opportunity.” \u00a0He cites inventor Buckminster Fuller, who presented an idea that “students would gain knowledge through ‘an intercontinentally networked documentaries call-up system, operative over any home two-way TV set'” in 1961. \u00a0Keats believes that Fullers original vision was not about vocational studies but “generalism, to interest people in everything, so that they could grapple with complexly interconnected global problems.” \u00a0This is how the Netflix model can save MOOCs. \u00a0As Keats describes “recommendation engines like those employed by Netflix and YouTube” can “entice students to compulsively take up new interests.” \u00a0A streamlined system of easy to view courses that are quick and simple to follow would allow students to study topics they are interested in, regardless of skill level and availability.<\/p>\n

A number of\u00a0MOOC enthusiasts remain confident that student-oriented improvements\u00a0such as the one outlined in the Wired\u00a0<\/em>article –or other changes yet to be realized– will inevitably emerge. \u00a0Stanford professor Mitchell Stevens,\u00a0for example, remains optimistic. \u00a0“I’m not disappointed with MOOCs,” Stevens reports to\u00a0Stanford News<\/a>, “We’re still in the horse-and-buggy stage.” \u00a0Stevens is not alone when thinking that MOOCs have been successful despite their\u00a0growing pains. \u00a0Fellow Stanford professor (and co-director of the Stanford Lytics Lab<\/a>), Candace Thille, explains that at least\u00a0one\u00a0major\u00a0advantage of the recent experiments in MOOCs is that professors can now use this new form of online pedagogy \u00a0to learn a great deal more about learning. \u00a0Thille and Stevens, (along with John Mitchell) argue that the key to understanding the potential of MOOCs is understanding that they are not really “college courses. “They are a new instructional genre,”\u00a0claim\u00a0the authors in a recent op-ed<\/a>, “somewhere between a digital textbook and a successful college course.”<\/p>\n

This insight\u00a0and other innovations (like the\u00a0<\/span>Netflix model that Jonathan Keats has been promoting)\u00a0<\/span>might well\u00a0combine to<\/span>\u00a0infuse online learning with greater staying power in the second and third stages of its revolution. \u00a0By having a simple, easy to use platform with access to <\/span>a wide (almost infinite) range of compact\u00a0<\/span>subjects, lifelong students might eventually feel empowered to learn almost as easily as they channel surf. \u00a0Of course, that means that MOOCs will have to develop greater humanities content and not just remain focused on the STEM and professional development fields that have so far been enticing the largest\u00a0numbers of\u00a0online registrants. \u00a0Also, it might mean that online “courses” will have to become shorter and much\u00a0more flexible in their commitment level, and most certainly less “massive” in their aspirations. \u00a0Netflix, after all, succeeds in part because it understands the needs and habits of niche viewers. \u00a0It might well be the ironic consequence of the MOOC experiment, that ultimately\u00a0it proves to be transformative in our approaches to individualized learning. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Netflix model of customized, easy to use selection could help revitalize the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) industry, according to Jonathan Keats at Wired. \u00a0Since bursting onto the education scene in 2011, MOOCs have experienced both an\u00a0increase in participants and\u00a0in\u00a0dropouts. As low as 5%\u00a0of MOOC students are actually completing the courses that they have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4760],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-online"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4738"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4749,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738\/revisions\/4749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}