Now class.....swap and mark each other's answers.....

One of the debates around MOOCs is whether learners find it a bit lonely and isolated, and hence cause the drop out rates we see in early iterations of this sort of learning design and delivery platform.  Of course, it is quite ironic that learners should feel this way given the total participants for a MOOC could run into thousands but in a virtual environment which is mainly asynchronous in nature, it is not unlike the feeling a learner gets when he or she completes an e learn.

Being social in nature, we crave relationships in a learning context, but as MOOCs have a heavy dose of self study involved, the challenge seems to be how we engage learners with the content through social designs but at the same time encouraging the skills of independent learning, reflection and contemplation, and critical thinking around what one is learning and experiencing.

One interesting strand on improving the social glue is through self and peer assessment and evaluation. Although the idea is not new, the virtual world has opened up opportunities which may have been un achievable in the past, at least on a massive scale. And as the platforms underlying MOOCs are only really good at machine-graded assessments (eg multiple choice, quantitative based problems) there seems to be an opportunity in MOOCs to use participants to assess each other's qualitative work (textual based work).

There are many reasons why such self and peer assessments need to carefully planned and monitored; many social psychology theories around the preservation of self-concept (trying to be top of the class by being overly mean on the way one assesses another's work) can conspire against it's success. But there are real benefits eg freeing up the subject matter expert's time to focus on knowledge transfer and application of learning in real scenarios, as well as the learner gaining a better and deeper understanding of the material. And if you use it on formative (how can we improve) rather than purely summative assessments (what grade or mark shall I give) then there is scope for extending the value of collaborative learning.

See it....learn it?

The recent rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a means of scaling up numbers being able to attend university courses is embracing TV to try and engage learners more and improve take up/completion rates. 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23931078

The role of "edutainment" has been around for decades, and more recently in corporates and higher education, video has made up an increasing proportion of the "blend" of delivery tools. This was meant to increase engagement, presumably through entertaining the learner, with a view to having positive knock on effects on learning, application and business impact. And this happened at the same time as the historical province of TV/video as a square box in the living room was transformed into additional delivery channels through mobile devices and tablets, and with the design of smaller chunks of video to reflect the busy schedules of corporate learners and students.

But is appealing to the visual sense an effective, and indeed the most effective, way to learn? For example, does it make us think about something, and remember it, better?  I'd be keen to see what the research says about this (if anything) and I'll post some findings later. In the meantime, Tristan Gooley in his book "The Natural Explorer" which I am currently reading reminds us of Heidegger's words that "the fundamental event of the modern age is the conquest of the world as a picture". We watch TV, we look at websites, we take loads of photos. But what about the other senses? 

Smell, taste and touch don't often come into the equation for corporate learning for knowledge workers, unless you are a wine educator, or if we associate our colleagues' aftershave or well baked break time muffins with a learning experience! Possibly. But hearing, or auditory delivered learning such as lectures or podcasts, can often allow a concept or topic to be contextualised by the learner in their own minds without the provided context (distraction or clutter) of TV characters, props, thrills and spills.

But what about those boring compliance e learns and classroom sessions ? I could see them getting a shot in the arm from TV, but somehow I couldn't see the Coronation Street cast being credible enough to keep us on the edge of our seats when talking about the latest new accounting standard or tax act! 

Welcome to my blog

Hello, I'm Phil Richards and this is my blog on learning. Specifically, I'm interested in opportunities and challenges for learning in organisations, at individual, team as well as organisational levels. Having spent over 10 years supporting learning in a large and complex professional services environment both in the UK and overseas, and studying it at a postgraduate level, I'm looking forward to the chance to air my more personal views on learning. Especially how learning can have a positive impact in organisations and help deliver sustainable improvement in society, as well as those of organisations and the individuals who work in them.

Learning involves change of some kind, and as write this I am also going through my own period of personal change. I'm also hoping that the acts of researching, reflecting and writing posts will provide me with some insight into my own situation.