ENGAGE

Based on the interview, the situation has pushed many educators to turn to remote teaching, which is
rapidly becoming the “new normal” in the era of social-distancing and community quarantine. But this
sudden shift from traditional classrooms to virtual learning has plunged many teachers into uncharted
waters. For one, technology, which plays a key role in facilitating online classrooms, has raised many
challenges. Issues of equity such as the lack of access of some students to the Internet and personal
learning devices are some of the difficulties that have pushed teachers to adapt and be more creative in
their teaching strategies

On the other hand, parents said that students have lost interest in studying due to burnout caused by
their classes' workload. They also struggle with the lack of resources that the new system requires. For
the second straight year, Mrs. Lina is among many Filipino parents who bear the brunt of the distance
learning setup. Things are made more difficult, she said, by the government's lack of support for
struggling families like hers.

Synchronous classes were not favorable to some students who have slow internet connection and
limited bandwidth. Students felt frustrated because sometimes they cannot understand anything what
the teacher was discussing during synchronous lessons. Some students find it difficult to listen and
understand the lessons being discussed since a lot of distractions and interruptions on both teacher and
students’ ends were intervening along the learning process. There are students with poor conducive
learning environment which affects their concentration on the synchronous meeting.

EXTEND

What are Massive open online courses (MOOCs)?

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course and represents an instructional approach that permits
hundreds of thousands of students to access online courses anywhere around the world and typically
free of charge. MOOCs are open, large-scale web-based courses designed and delivered by accredited
higher education institutions and organisations in which anyone with a smart device and internet
connection can participate, regardless of age, gender, geographic location, or education background.

The first-generation MOOCs embraced a decentralized, learner-centred approach; the second-

generation MOOCs were characterized by teacher-centred teaching and learning; the third-generation
hybrid MOOCs took a more pragmatic approach by combining the two previous approaches; to diversify
learning opportunities and to reach a broader audience.
Courses & Certification

Instructional Design Certificate (Fully Online). This fully online program is for anyone developing and/or
teaching an online course.

ADDIE Instructional Design Certificate Program (Fully Online). This fully online program is designed for
individuals interested in learning more about the ADDIE model.

Instructional Design Models Certificate (Fully Online). You will explore traditional instructional design
models and the progression of the learning design approach to creating online learning experiences.

Millions of people are learning in thousands (more than 8,000) of MOOCs offered by prestigious
universities (more than 700) worldwide. A MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is a free, massive, open,
online course, that allows unlimited participation. Some MOOCs can be relatively small in scale, while
some can be quite large.

MOOCS are asynchronous, open-access, Web-based courses geared toward enrolling hundreds or
thousands of students at a time. MOOCs deliver content via recorded video lectures, online readings,
and online assessments, as well as various degrees of student-student and student-instructor
interaction.

By their nature, MOOCs can accommodate students of similar interests from a wide range of
backgrounds, experience, and location around the world. Similarly, most MOOCS are free of cost,
further increasing their accessibility to anyone interested. Some MOOCs offer certifications, which range
from statements of accomplishment for meeting minimum course standards to verified certificates for
passing proctored exams; most MOOCs, though, do not count for college credit.

There are two main types of MOOCs: xMOOCs and cMOOCs:

xMOOCs

xMOOCs are based on traditional course structures and make use of established teaching approaches
and materials. Students will watch pre-recorded lectures, complete required readings, and participate in
discussions as produced and curated by the course instructor or an instructional team from a higher
education institution. xMOOCs are typically self-contained and rarely if ever utilize content external to
the main content delivery and learning platform.
cMOOCs

cMOOCs are based on connectivist learning models that privilege collaboration as a form of active
learning. Students in a cMOOC will work together to locate, evaluate, and contribute course content,
uploading materials (tweets, blog posts, blogs, wikis, etc.) to the course using the learning platform. A
cMOOC instructor or instructional team facilitates learning by finalizing, aggregating, and assessing the
students’ contributions to the course.

Even as other asynchronous online courses, have been available for decades, MOOCs are one of the
most recent evolutions in online learning, due to their asynchronous nature, global reach, relationship
to college credit, and fully-online design and delivery. Due to their immediate and ongoing popularity for
both current students and lifelong learners, MOOCs seem to be signaling several important trends that
will continue for the foreseeable future.

As educational technologies, instructional design and online learning/content delivery platforms keep
evolving, more learners with more needs and motives will be drawn to taking online courses – a growing
demand that in turn will spur further improvements in technology and delivery. From this, it seems that
future online learning options will need to focus on leveraging technologies to create personalizable
learning experiences that meet diverse student needs (accreditation, affordability, and access, among
others) instead of simply looking toward content delivery.

MOOCs offer a strong starting point for a number of reasons, including:

Lack of entry requirements – a MOOC can be taken by anyone who is interested in the subject matter
and able to access the course, regardless of age, background, or location

Repetition – a MOOC will often run two or three times a year, ensuring that students won’t miss their
chance

High quality – MOOCs are led by subject matter experts (SMEs) and supported by teaching assistants so
that students have access to first-rate educational resources

Feasibility – a MOOC usually necessitates around 1-2 hours of study a week for about 5 weeks, making
learning doable for students with busy lives

Self-paced but supported learning – a MOOC enables students to work through the course materials and
assessments at their own rates while also interacting with a global learning community
Also, as discussed above, most MOOCs are free and all are accessible to any learner with an internet
connection and basic computer equipment. Dropping out of a MOOC also carries less penalties than it
would for a traditional college-level class, and students’ is marked by peer review and/or automatically-
marked tests, decreasing stress and burdens even further.

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain.
They are published under open licenses (i.e Creative Commons) that specify how materials can be used,
reused, adapted, shared and modified according to specific needs. They can include textbooks, lecture
notes, syllabi, assignments and tests.

Within the bounds of Creative Commons licensing there are 5 key points to consider when using OERs:

1. Reuse - Content can be reused in its unaltered original format

2. Retain - Copies of content can be retained for personal archives or reference

3. Revise - Content can be modified or altered to suit specific needs

4. Remix - Content can be adapted with other similar content to create something new

5. Redistribute - Content can be shared with anyone else in its original or altered format

OER Benefits

There are many reasons for using OERs in learning and teaching.

For teaching staff, OERs can supplement and add value to existing curriculum resources.

At the same time, it can reduce the cost of education for your students (reducing financial stress by
removing textbook purchases).

For students, using OERs can expose students to a wider range of digital learning opportunities in the
form of open texts, open images, open courseware, and self-assessment tools. According to JISC,
learners can benefit from:
enhanced quality and flexibility of resources

seeing/applying knowledge in a wider context than their course may otherwise allow (international
dimension)

support for learner-centered, self-directed, peer-to-peer and social/informal learning approaches.

OERs provide:

Learning resources with cost-saving, quality and flexibility of access

Enhanced opportunities for self-learning at home

Skills development: digital literacy skills for searching, reusing, recreating, disseminating, branding,
networking OERs to learning community.