This week saw the launch of FutureLearn’s first course, The Power of Brands. FutureLearn is the UK’s answer to Coursera, EdX and the like. It is good to finally see the UK coming to the party with MOOCs in a coherent manner, something that has been sorely lacking over the last 12 months. I’d signed up a while ago, so I was keen to get stuck in…
The experience was very straightforward; nicely presented content, mostly video, some text, completely inoffensive in usability terms. Discussion points were occasionally raised but more often than not the comment stream alongside a video was left up to the user to interpret. There’s no voting system on the comments, so it’s easy to imagine that the sheer weight of commentary will become difficult to sift through quickly.
After I marked each piece of content as ‘complete’ I was invited to try the end of week quiz. A few Multiple Choice Questions of very dubious quality (did Don Draper make an advert for VW?) and I got 12/15. I hadn’t actually spent more than a minute on any of the content pages, so the rigour will need to increase as the weeks go by if this is ever to be taken as a vehicle for higher learning.
I’m not sure if anything is going on behind the hood in terms of data or personalization, but it doesn’t look like it so far. What we have here is a nicely presented set of videos, text and multiple-choice questions. It is not revolutionary, save for the fact that they are giving it away for free. I’ve searched for a legitimate reason for a University to do this beyond marketing and CSR, but honestly, I can’t find one. The genius has been in persuading some of the UK’s top institutions that they need to give stuff away for free with no promise of returns.
MOOCs in this form aren’t really MOOCs at all in the traditional sense. This is very much a bastardised way of interpreting the original theory. It couldn’t be more linear for the learner if it tried. I don’t blame them; Connectivist MOOCs (as the theory originators term their own) are an exercise in chaos; connecting folk with a common interest around a core idea and exploring it organically over time. The FutureLearn way of doing things is the antithesis of this idea, an xMOOC. It is linear, highly structured into sequential weeks (which you can’t skip ahead on) and very much the same as the last 15 years of online learning. The discourse is an after-thought. The educators rely on the content to impart learning to passive students. FutureLearn looks like it knows this; if it set out to deliver highly usable and highly accessible learning, it has. If it set out to provide a revolution in online teaching, it has not.
If FutureLearn is not a revolution in pedagogic terms, is it revolutionary in other terms? A key feature of cMOOCs for me is the chance to create a learning experience very quickly, relying on the network as oppose to content to impart learning. But this course has taken FutureLearn a very long time to deliver – nearly a year. Whilst it is easy to see that much of that time was probably taken up with politics, the cost of delivering this sort of learning must be unsustainable. This is a missed opportunity. The future of learning online is not in the creation of perfect content, but in the curation of learning experiences. Much of the content is only a minute or so in length; this is right. My own experiences suggest that the shorter the material, the better. But without a change in the pedagogy, this just leaves us with a series of very short videos. How will the course move beyond the facile?
The UK has made horrific missteps before. As far as I can tell, the key difference now is timing. There was a lack of a sustainable business model then, much as there is now.
In teaching terms, I want to see much more being made of the discussion areas. I want to see peer contributed content alongside Subject Matter Experts. I want to know that data is being collected throughout to help personalize the experience. I want the platform to be xAPI compliant and I want Badges.
Commercially I probably want to pay for all this. I’d much rather create a sustainable, affordable system for the long-term than give it all away because Coursera does. I’m not adverse to companies putting content up in this area. I’d much rather learn programming from Google than any university in the UK. I also want to really see a shift to more practical, even vocational courses.
Of course, I’ve been quick to judge; I’m sure a huge amount of effort has gone in to getting us this far. I like the fact that the platform is highly useable. I like the look of some of the courses coming; MOOCs have a real opportunity to fulfill niches that are hard to reach with other methodologies. I like the fact that some of the course tutors are outstanding individuals. We needed this in the UK, but it’s the first step on a very tall ladder. Go judge for yourself.
Shameless self promotion: I’ll be speaking at DevLearn next week on the subject of MOOCs with Professor Simon Croom. Come join in the conversation!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 and is filed under eLearning. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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