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Curiously, with MOOCs replacing OpenCourseware, we've shifted to an environment that's a little bit harder to iterate on. Editing text is easy. Editing somethin

Curiously, with MOOCs replacing OpenCourseware, we've shifted to an environment that's a little bit harder to iterate on. Editing text is easy. Editing something someone said in the middle of some video can be harder (continuity issues, availability of the original speaker, audio environment, etc). Quite a few MOOCs have shifted up a notch in their production values recently. When you've flown to another country to interview a famous scientist for your MOOC, it's probably a bit trickier to make a minor edit to what was said next year.

jerf 13y ago
"Editing something someone said in the middle of some video can be harder (continuity issues, availability of the original speaker, audio environment, etc)." That's part of what I was thinking when I said this was early days. While the problems can't be completely glossed over, there's some stuff we can do to mitigate those problems. An interview would be a primary source; of course you can't edit that, but good odds you've got some sort of summary that is part of the core course, where the interview is immediately available as a primary source. The summary would be as fungible as anything else, and the interview ought to be treated as a primary source and archived. (Possibly with one pass of audio cleanup, but not something to be modified wiki-style.) On the topic of Wiki, some sort of editor-driven Wiki could help too. Many Montessori schools already adapt the idea of having the older students teach the younger, I believe; as MOOCs evolve it's very easy to imagine harnessing the students themselves to start fixing the courses they've already taken. They'd move from an isolated course to an integrated part of the whole education. Again, like I said, I fully believe these are the early days of a revolution, and writing MOOCs (and more generally, online education in general) off now is like writing off the automobile because it's a great deal less convenient in every way than a horse, and smells worse and is more expensive to boot. Yes, that was true... at the beginning....
ZeroGravitas 13y ago
That's because MOOCs (at least the new breed, not the original ones that had that name) are an attempt to fight back against open education by the establishment. It's like Britannica putting their encyclopedia online, mostly a distraction. Luckily neither Britannica nor the educational establishment actually have/had a coherent plan, but they can distract those who aren't paying attention.

jerf 13y ago

"Editing something someone said in the middle of some video can be harder (continuity issues, availability of the original speaker, audio environment, etc)." That's part of what I was thinking when I said this was early days. While the problems can't be completely glossed over, there's some stuff we can do to mitigate those problems. An interview would be a primary source; of course you can't edit that, but good odds you've got some sort of summary that is part of the core course, where the interview is immediately available as a primary source. The summary would be as fungible as anything else, and the interview ought to be treated as a primary source and archived. (Possibly with one pass of audio cleanup, but not something to be modified wiki-style.) On the topic of Wiki, some sort of editor-driven Wiki could help too. Many Montessori schools already adapt the idea of having the older students teach the younger, I believe; as MOOCs evolve it's very easy to imagine harnessing the students themselves to start fixing the courses they've already taken. They'd move from an isolated course to an integrated part of the whole education. Again, like I said, I fully believe these are the early days of a revolution, and writing MOOCs (and more generally, online education in general) off now is like writing off the automobile because it's a great deal less convenient in every way than a horse, and smells worse and is more expensive to boot. Yes, that was true... at the beginning....

ZeroGravitas 13y ago

That's because MOOCs (at least the new breed, not the original ones that had that name) are an attempt to fight back against open education by the establishment. It's like Britannica putting their encyclopedia online, mostly a distraction. Luckily neither Britannica nor the educational establishment actually have/had a coherent plan, but they can distract those who aren't paying attention.