INTEGRATING MOOCS IN BLENDED COURSES

Abstract

Integrating MOOCs in Blended Courses Authors: Carmen Holotescu, Gabriela Grosseck Numerous recent studies appreciate that "MOOCs bring an impetus of reform, research and innovation to the Academy" (DBIS, 2013). Even though MOOCs are usually developed and delivered as independent online courses, experiments to wrap formal university courses around existing MOOCs are reported by teachers and researchers in different articles (Bruff et al., 2013). This paper describes a different approach, in which the participation of students in different MOOCs was integrated in a blended course run on a social mobile LMS. The topics of MOOCs delivered on different platforms and having different characteristics were connected with the fall 2013 undergraduate course of Web Programming. The main parts of this study deal with: - The reasons to integrate MOOCs in the university course - How the course was designed, how the students' activities on different MOOCs platforms were assessed and integrated in the course scenario - The results of a survey that evaluates students experiences related to MOOCs: a number of MOOCs features were assessed (Holotescu, Grosseck and Cretu, 2013); also answers to a few problems are analysed: o Did the participation in MOOCs support students to clarify and expand the course issues? o What are students' suggestions for a more active participation in MOOCs? o Comparing the learning scenarios of MOOCs with the Web Programming blended course how the course and its virtual space can be improved? o Do the students consider that the MOOCs phenomenom is important for professional and personal development? The conclusions of the paper can be used by other teachers/instructors for integrating MOOCs in the courses they deliver/facilitate. References: Bruff, D. O., Fisher, D. H., McEwen, K. E., & Smith, B. E. (2013). Wrapping a MOOC: Student Perceptions of an Experiment in Blended Learning. Journal of Online Learning & Teaching, 9(2). https://my.vanderbilt.edu/douglasfisher/files/2013/06/JOLTPaperFinal6-9-2013.pdf Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, London. (2013). The Maturing of the MOOC. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/240193/13-1173-maturing-of-the-mooc.pdf Holotescu, C., Cretu, V., & Grosseck, G. (2013). MOOC'a Anatomy: Microblogging as the MOOC's Control Center. Conference Proceedings of "eLearning and Software for Education" (eLSE) (No. 02, pp. 312-319), Bucharest, April 2013. Hill, P. (2012). Online Educational Delivery Models: A Descriptive View. Educause Review, 47(6), 84-86. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM1263.pdf