Exploring a New Learning Environment Through Massive Open Online Course: An Overview

Introduction

Education has always been relied on certain tools and modes these were pencils, books, and chalk and boards, to deliver content. As the technology involves and impacts the environment gets change for a learners and facilitators. The concept of traditional classroom teaching environment has enhanced to virtual online learning environments which are in synchronous and asynchronous modes. The tool of education list has grown to include Information and Communications Technology such as smart classroom which have computers connected to internet and more recently, online platforms such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) (Cheung, 2013). These tools used in learning and teaching processes are in a continuous state of flux. However recent improvements in technology and increasing bandwidth capabilities have led to the growing popularity of synchronous e-learning Chen (2006). Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been integrated into teaching and learning to support a variety of pedagogies during the last three decades of the 20th century. From open access to open educational resources, and more recently, open online courses, there is growing momentum among institutions to participate in this “open” movement.

E-learning is a process of online teaching and learning through network technologies which is powerful growing need of education in lifelong learning phase (Zhang, 2004). Learning initiatives mainly replied on asynchronous means for teaching and learning. Learning environments potentially provides higher learner autonomy and more interactions among learners than traditional classrooms. Mayer (2012) argued that learning outcomes are affected by learning materials instructional methods, and learner characteristics.

Casey (2008) observed, distance education has a long history, with correspondence courses making use of reasonable cost universal postal services for the delivery of study material to learners and for submission/return of assignments by/to students. Dede (2008) highlight that the underlying pedagogy in many current learning management systems (LMSs) closely resembles computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Their obvious disadvantage is that they are usually based on a paradigm of learning that encourages “reaching the correct answer” rather than on the generation of new questions. A range of both topics and platforms have since emerged and the term was described as “the educational buzzword of 2012” by Daniel (2012) reflecting widespread interest in the concept.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been integrated into teaching and learning to support a variety of pedagogies during the last three decades of the 20th century. As we know traditional online courses charge tuition, carry credit and limit enrollment to a few dozen to ensure interaction with instructors. On the other hand, MOOCs is usually free, credit less and well massive. While most MOOC platforms indeed offer their courses for free (although some of them charge a premium for extra features such as certification), many platforms are not fully accessible to all learners due to linguistic, technological and disability barriers.

Overview Of Moocs

MOOCs are one of the popular trends in higher education, which is making easier for learners to access free and high-quality learning opportunities. It offers tremendous learning opportunities to a massive number of learners from anywhere in the world as long as they can access the course through internet. Many universities around the world are adopting MOOCs as a platform to support education especially using the power of web to offer courses online. Concept of MOOCs has several dimensions which can be understand by expansion of each words, i.e.: