Association for the
Advancement of Computing in Education
Celebrating 30+ Years of
Service to the IT in Education / E-Learning Community
Celebrating 30+ Years of
Service to the IT in Education / E-Learning Community
MOOC” is a fairly recent term. It is also a “Learning For All” movement currently stimulating active debates in the education space around the world. MOOC simply denotes a Massive Open Online Course, but in the larger context, it may be a catalyst to reimagine higher education. Whether MOOCs are part of a global open education initiative or a for-profit education model, today there is certainly growing R&D interest, as well as entrepreneurial attention. There is, however, substantial criticism and typical bystander skepticism, mostly arising from reports describing the quite unexciting completion rates of many MOOCs. Acknowledging the abundant misunderstandings around MOOCs and the vague institutional goals from early-adopter universities, an argument can be made that the current structures of MOOCs today are not sustainable. In this session, The Anatomy of a MOOC, the non-profit and for-profit models will be viewed, compared, and presented through the lens of sustainability.
Dr. Paul Kim is the Chief Technology Officer and Assistant Dean at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. Dr. Kim has been leading numerous projects involving the design of learning technologies, educational research, and international development. He is a senior researcher for Programmable Open Mobile Internet (http://pomi.stanford.edu/); (POMI) project in which he designs and experiments future mobile technologies and global classroom solutions. He implemented various mobile learning pedagogies such as SMILE (Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment) in over 22 countries while launching a MOOC on Venture Lab (http://venture-lab.org/education/), attracting over 20,000 students from around the world. In his single online course, students design a new learning environment as one massive global team project. His involvements in overseas projects include Saudi Arabia’s national online education initiative, the national evaluation of Uruguay’s One Laptop Per Child project, Rwanda’s national ICT planning, etc. Previously, he served as a board member of WestEd (http://www.wested.org/) and a committee member for Grand Challenges in International Development (http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/dsc/grandchallenges/index.htm). He is currently serving as a committee member for National Science Foundation's Education and Human Resources Directorate (http://www.nsf.gov/ehr/advisory.jsp).
