Comments on: Oh, the irony: Coursera suspends online course about how to run an online course

By: Russell J. Ivanhoe

Russell J. Ivanhoe — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:03:57 +0000

My experience with the course was awful not only because of the technical glitches but also, I am sorry to say, the lectures were horrible. I don’t need an online course for an instructor to read me slides verbatim. There is more to delivering content than just the social aspect. How can social interaction be valuable when the content is bad?

By: Jenny Hardacre

Jenny Hardacre — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:17:19 +0000

I was doing this course. It’s.great – interesting readings and lectures. I’m looking forward to it resuming. The group forming chaos was actually interesting and informative for everyone – we all want to know how (and how not to) do this sort of thing; don’t blame the course leader at all. I was a bit pissed off to find I had been removed from the group I’d originally joined and someone announced ‘This group is only for MBAs’. With 30 years teaching experience I wouldn’t expect my students to do this either. Mind you, I’ve never tried to teach 40, 000 people at once…

By: Lynn B

Lynn B — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:09:12 +0000

40,000 isn’t many for a MOOC. The Coursera Think Again course has around 171,000 and I believe the Philosophy one has around a quarter of a million students. Only a small percentage finish though! There may be glitches but I’ve now completed and gained a certificate for two MOOC courses (one on Coursera and another on Stanford’s Venture Lab). I got to work with a small group of other students in a global team on the Venture Lab one. Despite being in different world time zones we are still talking to each other regularly on Skype, weeks after we finished. I’m a big fan!

By: Lynn B

Lynn B — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 09:58:30 +0000

This reminds me of when I was on a course for teaching adults. The lesson was about lesson timing planning and we each had to give a 10 minute lesson to our peers to demonstrate we could fit everything in comfortably. The lesson was so badly timed that there wasn’t enough time for two of us to complete ours so we were asked to come back and do it the following week!

By: Aran Hamilton

Aran Hamilton — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 21:41:44 +0000

I think we’re missing the bigger story:
FORTY THOUSAND PEOPLE SIGNED UP TO TAKE A SINGLE ONLINE COURSE!
HOLY COW!!

By: Ezra Freelove

Ezra Freelove — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 21:25:56 +0000

“In this case, [Andrew Ng] said, she wanted to try a new approach to group learning online but there wasn’t adequate time to put in place the technology and infrastructure needed to support it.” Dates for a class like this can be pushed back if you are not ready. No one is going to ask for their money back, it is free.

By: jeff

jeff — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:12:10 +0000

“What he said”…great comment.

By: paul martin

paul martin — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 05:12:13 +0000

I feel for Fatimah. The worst audience (as various Education leaders have discovered) are other teachers. The benefit for most is that as soon as the door shuts they are in charge and there is a belief that the (physical) open plan innovation leads to a poorer learning environment. As always, technology has apparently let her down and whereas in the real world a distraction can be mastered by plan B there seems to have been an assumption that certain things do not go wrong. It strikes me that the organic world is simply there to keep the inorganic one on the rails.

By: Startup Angel

Startup Angel — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:34:03 +0000

Reblogged this on Class Acts and commented: It's all about branding. They just need to rename the course "How NOT to run a MOOC" and call it an outstanding success. Kudos to Tech for pushing the envelope.