May 9, 2017

MOOC - The Architectural Imagination

The MOOC I chose to watch was a lecture on the History and Theory of architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Since architecture is something which I have always been interested in, I thought that this might be an interesting lecture to watch. I was actually surprised at how well it was made, I was expecting something like a recording from a regular university lecture, but instead, the lecture was made specifically for the online MOOC course. I found the MOOC on edx.org, which is dedicated to MOOCs in all areas of study which are available from many different universities. On the website there is a detailed description for each course, as well as information on the lecturers and an opportunity to pay for a “verified certificate” that you have completed the course.

In my opinion, MOOCs could improve education quite a bit, but not really in the traditional sense. I think these courses are more appropriate for people who are interested in a particular subject and would like to know more about it, but are not ready or able to take a class at university or to pursue a degree in that subject. But as far as making knowledge more accessible, I think MOOCs could be very useful in the future. A MOOC that I would like to participate in would be similar to the one I viewed on architecture – that means that it has to be well organized and designed in a way that it is easy to follow in an online format, because what works in a traditional lecture will probably not be as effective for someone watching from their computer instead of being there in person. 

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your experience. Did watching the single lecture make you want to take the whole course? What kind of interaction does the course require? How did it differ from watching an interesting television program?

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    1. The lecture was interesting but there is no way that I would have time to take the entire course. To me it seems like it would be more useful to watch the lectures individually based on which topics I'm interested in (similar to looking up videos on youtube) The course required submitting some assignments and I think some kind of test at the end. It was different from TV because here you feel like you should be actively trying to understand the topic, instead of just sitting and watching.

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  2. Hey, was it your first experience with MOOC? Would you recommend this course for those who are interested in architecture or would you rather suggest using a different platform?

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    1. Yup, this was the first time I ever watched a MOOC, but I watched similar videos on different topics on youtube before (but that's different since it's not a whole course). From one lecture I can't really say if I'd recommend it but it seemed well done and informative :-)

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  3. You write "I was actually surprised at how well it was made, I was expecting something like a recording from a regular university lecture, but instead, the lecture was made specifically for the online MOOC course", but did the course you tried actually capture your interest and did you learn something? Do you think you are part of the target audience?

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