A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course designed for large-scale participation and open access via the Web. All MOOCs are based on a “virtual learning environment”—the basic component of all distance learning. Universities around the world are offering online courses to the world and millions of people are improving their futures because of this new access to education. To hungry, eager students the MOOC world offers educational libations that can slake the intellectual thirst of any parched student…at any time of day…anywhere in the world. To watch a short animation on MOOCs click here. (Warning: this post is long so if you just want an overview of MOOCs just watch the animation.)
Is there a play in the MOOC space for classes in discipleship, spiritual formation, church planting, marriage prep and enrichment, leadership development, etc? Is there a need for follow-up and discipleship for those new converts who have come to Christ over the Web? Yes, but if we want to learn from the best and most engaging MOOCs we probably need to make a few adjustments to our digital pedagogy. The best MOOCs don’t merely film the university classes and post assignments through a pdf. The instructors have figured out that this new medium requires a new teaching style. Gone are the hour-long lectures. Content comes in smaller, more digestible chunks. As churches seek to teach, train, and disciple others over distance, or in a nonsynchronous, virtual environment it’s helpful to understand what’s happening in the MOOC ecosystem and what good teaching looks like. Because the best teaching is transformational we need a methodology that focuses on transformation more than transfer of information.
I’m particularly impressed by the online MOOC by Steven Blank on the Udacity platform. For 
the past several months I’ve been hosting Blank’s class called How to Build a Start-up. The format is simple. I grill up a few dozen wings, throw down a couple of pizzas on the grill then 5-10 co-workers sit around the family room watching Steven Blank teach on the big TV. Blank is a serial entrepreneur who has started eight companies and brought four of them public. He teaches this start-up class at Stanford in the wheel well of Silicon Valley. Though he could take the easy way out and just post his filmed lectures, Blank does something completely different. He adjusts his teaching style to the medium of the Web / mobile-digital. He teaches in 2-4 minute lessons. Each lesson is illustrated with simple diagrams and constructs. Every four lessons or so Blank pauses to give a short quiz and presents a few opportunities to correct your missed answers or you can skip directly to the correct answers. As students we discuss what we are experiencing in view of our own company. Discussions are robust and stimulating.
After watching Blank’s enthusiasm, his personal, friendly style of teaching a complex subject, don’t you think you (yes you) could design a course on basic follow-up, discipleship or marriage enrichment? Could you not teach basic theology or church planting if that is your passion and expertise set? Blank has given us a beautiful template for motivating and training others and we’d make a lot of progress by riding his coattails into the future of education. As a side note I mentioned this MOOC at my Global Connections Leadership Community in September. Last week a woman from this group excitedly told me she had worked through this course and started her own business. Pretty cool.
Understanding the MOOC ecosystem
This past year I did a fairly extensive overview of Learning Management Systems and some of the classes they support. If you are eager to learn more about MOOCs keep reading and follow the links to watch short videos or descriptions of these MOOCs.
Learning Management Systems
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of education courses or training programs. Where available, I have included a brief video link and feature list link for each site. Below are the most popular LMS sites:
Moodle (abbreviation for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) Moodle is a Learning Management System that provides free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. To watch a brief video on Moodle click here. For Moodle feature list, click here.
Instructure: Adopted by 300 universities, colleges and school districts, serving over 4.5 million people (thanks to a recent partnership with Cisco). To watch a brief video on Instructure Canvas, click here. Click here to see the graphic of their feature list comparison. For Canvas feature list, click here.
Blackboard: To watch a brief video on Blackboard on iPad, click here or here. Click here to find out more. For Blackboard feature list, click here.
Udemy: Udemy (“the academy for you”) is an online portal and platform that allows instructors to build online courses on topics of their choosing. To view a video of Udemy, click here. See Udemy’s FAQs here.
Pathwright — a simple, DIY content management system that lets any and all educators create, distribute, and sell online courses under the banner of their own branded, online schools. To view a video of their venture capital pitch, click here. For Pathwright feature list, click here.
Course Builder: Course Builder is Google’s experimental open-sourced first step in the world of online education. For the Course Builder course design process, click here. For a video on creating your first module, click here.
Sakai: Sakai is a community that exists to enhance teaching, learning, and research for educators and by educators. Grew out of Indiana University, MIT, Stanford and Michigan. Over 1/3 of the 100 top universities in the world use Sakai. To watch a brief video on Sakai, click here. For Sakai feature list, click here.
Desire2Learn: “We help over 8 million people discover what is possible through our innovative learning solutions. To watch a brief video on Desire2Learn, click here. For Desire2Learn feature list, click here.
Easy Course Creator: Easy Course Creator enables anyone to create course content, host courses online, and administer course users through an intuitive Learning Management System. For feature list, click here.
Mindflash: Mindflash focuses on helping end-users create online training. To watch a brief video, click here. For feature list, click here.
iTunesuU: iTunes U gives educators an easy way to design complete courses with audio, video, and other content and distribute them through the iTunes U app.
For a complete list of Learning Management Systems click here
Course Marketplaces that use Learning Management Systems
For Profit
Udacity: Udacity is a for-profit private educational organization. As mentioned earlier, for the past several months I (Eric) have been hosting Steven Blank’s course on How to Build a Start-up for 5-10 people from work on most Tuesday evenings in our home…along with pizza and wings of course. It’s a wonderful course.
Coursera: Coursera is a for profit educational company that partners with top universities offering free online courses for the masses. For news report from HLN TV click here. Featured on TED.com.
2U (formerly 2Tor): 2U is a for profit educational platform headed by former Hooked on Phonics CEO Chip Paucek.
Treehouse: Treehouse is a for profit education platform.
lynda.com is a for profit technical education platform designed to help professionals in technology, design, and business keep their tech skills up to date. To watch a short video on what they do, click here. To watch a short video on the history of lynda.com, click here.
Discovery Education is a for profit division of the Discovery Channel that produces on line material for all curriculum K-12:
Non-for-profit
KhanAcademy: Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization and a website created in 2006 by Bangladeshi-American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. Featured on TED.com. Khan Academy uses MOODLE as their Learning Management System
edX: EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web. Idea featured on TED.com.
University-based
Universities are moving into the MOOC space very quickly. 77% of colleges offer online courses. This is a $7b / year industry and growing at 8% / year. Most tech observers predict that online education is the future but not quite yet. 60% of “digital stakeholders” say that education in 2020 will be substantially different than it is today. Source
Top 9 MOOC sites that offer free classes: To see a more robust description, click here.
Udemy Free Courses – Udemy is an example of a site allows anyone to build or take online courses.
Stanford Free Courses “160,000 students from 190 countries signed up to Stanford’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course, with 23,000 reportedly completing.”
UC Berkeley Free Courses
MIT Free Courses
Duke Free Courses – Duke offers a variety of courses on ITunesU.
Harvard Free Courses “Take a class for professional development, enrichment, and degree credit. Courses run in the fall, spring, or intensive January session. No application is required.”
UCLA Free Courses
Yale Free Courses
Carnegie Mellon Free Courses – Carnegie Mellon boosts “No instructors, no credits, no charge.”
India-based Course Marketplaces
Indian educators and entrepreneurs have figured out that quality education over distance is key to the future of India—especially in STEM subjects.
Educomp Solutions Educomp is the largest Education Company in India and the only company spread across the entire education ecosystem.
Pressmart: Changing the way knowledge is transferred to young pupils, Pressmart drives the digital revolution in education.
Edututor Technologies E-learning startup Edutor Technologies, also introduced an education solution called ‘Augmented Classroom Solution (ACS)’, offering learning material including digitized textbooks, multimedia material, interactive concept maps and assessments complementing the school syllabus progress of students through a cloud solution, and personalize the learning experience by securely publishing homework, notes or other learning material.
Meritnation.com: “At Meritnation, we have made a commitment – to bring great and engaging study resources to you. We are committed to make school easy for all you students.
iProfindia LTD. (commonly called iProf) provides a platform of educational materials such as audio-video lectures, 3D animations and evaluative practice questions to prepare students for competitive national examinations for admissions into engineering, medical and management colleges and civil services programs. For video, click here.
I think something will happen if you take a couple of hours and dive into the world of MOOCs. You may find that you can create and deliver your own life-changing content through Massive, Open, Online Courses.
Over the next several months Leadership Network will be launching several initiatives that highlight the role of digital and tech in the church. If you’re the kind of leader who is looking to expand your reach and increase your effectiveness, contact Tim Nations at tim.nations@leadnet.org