Keys Unlocked by sacks08, License CC BY 2.0
One of the trends in education these days is MOOCs. It has nothing to do with cows; MOOC stands for massive online open course. The idea behind a MOOC is that an interested learner can participate in a paced online course (week by week) from anywhere by accessing the course content for free and at his/her own pace. The significant components of a MOOC are that people who engage in one tend to be interested in the content (and perhaps more motivated?) and choose to participate by connecting with other participants. Some MOOCs include students who (pay to) take the course for credit. Whether taking the course for credit or purely for interest, students network with each other and take control of the course, using a variety of communication tools to access, discuss, and learn the course content. The professor sets the framework to support and facilitate student collaboration, exploration, discovery and creativity. MOOCs may make use of both synchronous and asynchronous tools. They’re distributed because they use a variety of tools but all the tools are knit together in some way, sometimes through hash tags.
To find out more about MOOCS or if you prefer to watch than read, watch the video below,