Online education seems to be hi-tech, but the concept of distance education is nothing new as it has been there since the 18th century. The world’s first distance learning course was established in Boston, with lessons sent by email.
After several years, Penn State began offering courses through radio. Distance education had been through several forms such as telephone-based education, television-based learning, etc. Once after the invention of Internet by U.S Department of Defense in 1969, computer-based education has been trending time-to-time and now it has become a part of all the students, educators, professionals and lifelong learners. Now the term “Distance Education” turned to “Online Education”. Distance learning or Online education is flexible, convenient and highly advantageous as it saves time and money, offers you a wide variety of schools, colleges and numerous courses to choose from, brings you best lectures from expert professors globally, etc.
One more advancement in the concept of online learning is MOOCs. MOOCs refer to Massive Open Online Courses. They are free (mostly), designed to be accessed by thousands of students and online (interactions and learning are done on World Wide Web). MOOCs from non-profits like edX and for-profits like Coursera and Udacity have significantly drawn attention from a large number of users globally. Professors from many universities are dedicated to sharing their knowledge in order to help students globally. MOOCs have the ability turn them into rock star teachers.
MOOCs include a variety of content (for example: large video tutorial) segregated into a series of concepts in order to deliver it to so many students in an effective way. Designing and implementing a MOOC is not an easy task, it’s technically as well as critically challenging.
This article guides fresh educators about how to design and implement a MOOC and experienced educators about how to make a MOOC more effective and engaging.
