H800 2014

Very few Moocs lead to any sort of officially recognised qualification, so the recent success of the University of the People in being permitted to award degrees to students studying for its tuition-free, online-only courses marks a departure for the sector.

The University of the People, for example, states that undergraduates will study in groups of 30 to 40

he big question is whether you can [offer degrees] without tutorial support, and so at lower cost.

Grounded design is "the systematic implementation of processes and procedures that are rooted in established theory and research in human learning (Hannafin, Hannafin, Land, & Oliver, 1997, p.102)." Four conditions are basic to grounded design: designs must be rooted in a defensible theoretical framework methods must be consistent with the outcome of research conducted to test, validate, or extend the theories upon which they are based designs must be generalizable to situations beyond the unique conditions in which they are being utilized grounded designs and their frameworks must be validated iteratively through successive implementation

It’s easy to think that the small screen size, limited text options and fiddly buttons would immediately reduce the accessibility of the device for some learners. Whilst this is true it is only partly true because accessibility depends to a large extent on the context you’re working in. The model below has been developed to attempt to map the wider elements of accessibility in a more holistic way.

This is a professional development course for which the teaching methods currently used in MOOCs – videos, forums and quizzes* – are appropriate, because teachers are professionals who know how to learn, and can learn a lot from each other. These methods are not sophisticated enough for teaching children or even undergraduates in the developing world, which is why the beneficiaries are still the rich. But they may help to train the professionals who can begin to make the difference.