Cornell

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MOOCs in the Muck

Byuclafaculty

Good question! Inside Higher Ed today runs an article on MOOC offerings at the U of Texas and Cornell.  At the former, there are the usual extremely low completion rates.  At the latter, resident students are asking the question in the photo at the right: …”A year after UT began rolling out nine Massive Online Open Courses, the results are in,” The Daily Texan wrote in a Jan. 29 editorial… Among the “results” are completion rates ranging from 1 to 13 percent, the lack of credit granting courses and the $150,000 to $300,000 production costs…  (S)tudents at Cornell voiced similar concerns,…

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Do They Understand the Key Lesson of Their MOOC?

Byuclafaculty

Seems like a contradiction! To yours truly comes word that Cornell University is offering an  online course (MOOC) on American Capitalism.No problem with that, I guess, but they are giving it away for free.  Don’t think capitalism works like that – but what do I know? Details at https://www.edx.org/course/cornellx/cornellx-hist1514x-american-capitalism-1307

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Would it work for UC?

Byuclafaculty

We have noted in prior posts that the Regents (with a push from Gov. Brown) are interested in promoting online education at UC.  A somewhat different model is noted today in a brief article in Inside Higher Ed.  Online education, even if aimed at a mass audience, is often (not always) a pre-recorded program.  That is, something is put online and students access it at their convenience individually.  The article in Inside Higher Ed reports that Yale, Columbia, and Cornell are using video conferencing (so it’s live and at a fixed time) for small courses (capped at 12 students in…

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Yawning Gap Between Student and Instructor

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today features a YouTube video (below) from a Cornell instructor who becomes upset when someone yawns. Apparently, the lectures are routinely videoed by the Hotel School and the YouTube extract comes from the official recording. Although in this case the recording was official, it is well to note that cellphones can produce videos and that there are very small audio and video recorders that students may have in class. (The yawn is not heard on the video. There is a clicking sound which may be some artifact of the recording.) Can we say this episode is a…