Are MOOCs a catalyst for reimagining education, a sign of the increased corporatization of the education sector, or merely a well-publicized but passing trend? Massive Open Online Courses shares insights from multiple stakeholders on what MOOCs are now and could eventually become, providing those in higher education as well as K-12, military, government, and corporate training with an authoritative source on a wide range of key issues surrounding MOOCs. MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, are a disruptive technology currently forcing a serious reconceptualization of accreditation, assessment, motivation and retention, technology-based instruction, and the overall student experience. In this timely volume, Paul Kim brings together experts from higher education, business, law, learning analytics and other relevant areas to provide an evenhanded, research-based positioning of MOOCs within the existing educational technology landscape and a base for understanding whether they could reshape the future of education.

This book critically examines the role of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in higher education, against the backdrop of rapid developments in online learning. Reporting on a method by which one could isolate ideologically charged words from websites, the author underlines the need to pause, question and understand the underlying motives behind MOOCs, and ask fundamental questions about their data use, commercial interests, and ability to provide ‘good’ education. With its step-by-step ideological analysis, the author challenges educators, policymakers, and students alike to reconsider the fabric of online courses and their associated platforms. The book will appeal to scholars of digital education and sociology, as well as scholars from the critical sciences.

In a world obsessed with the virtual, tangible things are once again making history. Tangible Things invites readers to look closely at the things around them, ordinary things like the food on their plate and extraordinary things like the transit of planets across the sky. It argues that almost any material thing, when examined closely, can be a link between present and past. The authors of this book pulled an astonishing array of materials out of storage--from a pencil manufactured by Henry David Thoreau to a bracelet made from iridescent beetles--in a wide range of Harvard University collections to mount an innovative exhibition alongside a new general education course. The exhibition challenged the rigid distinctions between history, anthropology, science, and the arts. It showed that object-centered inquiry inevitably leads to a questioning of categories within and beyond history. Tangible Things is both an introduction to the range and scope of Harvard's remarkable collections and an invitation to reassess collections of all sorts, including those that reside in the bottom drawers or attics of people's houses. It interrogates the nineteenth-century categories that still divide art museums from science museums and historical collections from anthropological displays and that assume history is made only from written documents. Although it builds on a larger discussion among specialists, it makes its arguments through case studies, hoping to simultaneously entertain and inspire. The twenty case studies take us from the Galapagos Islands to India and from a third-century Egyptian papyrus fragment to a board game based on the twentieth-century comic strip "Dagwood and Blondie." A companion website catalogs the more than two hundred objects in the original exhibition and suggests ways in which the principles outlined in the book might change the way people understand the tangible things that surround them.

With the success of open access publishing, Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and open education practices, the open approach to education has moved from the periphery to the mainstream. This marks a moment of victory for the open education movement, but at the same time the real battle for the direction of openness begins. As with the green movement, openness now has a market value and is subject to new tensions, such as venture capitalists funding MOOC companies. This is a crucial time for determining the future direction of open education. In this volume, Martin Weller examines four key areas that have been central to the developments within open education: open access, MOOCs, open education resources and open scholarship. Exploring the tensions within these key arenas, he argues that ownership over the future direction of openness is significant to all of those with an interest in education.

To some in academia, Massive Open Online Courses are a paradigm shift in online education, while others perceive them as a threat to traditional styles of pedagogy. In this regard, the time-honored model of the university lecture is seen as being a potential casualty of the rise of MOOCs. Macro-Level Learning through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Strategies and Predictions for the Future provides insight into the emerging phenomenon of MOOCs as a design manual for the course designer with a collection of chapters that deal with all facets of the MOOC debate. Industry training developers, corporate trainers, educators, post graduate students, and others will benefit from the information provided in this book.

In recent years, technological advancements have enabled higher-learning institutions to offer millions of independent learners the opportunity to participate in open-access online courses. As this practice expands, drawing considerable media attention, questions continue to arise regarding pedagogical methodology and the long-term viability of open learning. Furthering Higher Education Possibilities through Massive Open Online Courses seeks to provide a space for discussion of MOOCs: what they mean for the learning process, how they are redefining the concept of a classroom, and what effects they may have on the role of teachers. Featuring emerging research on a variety of topics relating to distance education, informal learning, as well as educational costs and funding, this book is aimed at teachers, administrators, business professionals, and designers of both curricular resources and e-classroom technology.