RESOURCE: 5 Potential Ways MOOCs Will Evolve
In order to understand where MOOCs are heading (at least taking a stab at guessing their future), it’s important to know what the stated goals are. In case you’re still new to MOOCs, here’s a helpful rundown of the guiding principles behind MOOCs:
Aggregation. The whole point of a connectivist MOOC is to provide a starting point for a massive amount of content to be produced in different places online, which is later aggregated as a newsletter or a web page accessible to participants on a regular basis. This is in contrast to traditional courses, where the content is prepared ahead of time.
The second principle is remixing, that is, associating materials created within the course with each other and with materials elsewhere.
Re-purposing of aggregated and remixed materials to suit the goals of each participant.
Feeding forward, sharing of re-purposed ideas and content with other participants and the rest of the world.
Written by Brian S McGowan, PhD
Brian is a research scientist and educational technologist. He helped transform Pfizer’s Medical Education Group and previously served in educational leadership roles at HealthAnswers, Inc.; Acumentis, LLC.; Cephalon; and Wyeth. He taught graduate medical education programs at Arcadia University for 10 years. Dr. McGowan recently authored the book "#socialQI: Simple Solutions for Improving Your Healthcare" and has been invited to speak internationally on the subject of information flow, technology, and learning in healthcare.
