No Film At 11: the Case For the Less-Video-Is-More MOOC

theodp writes: In Why My MOOC is Not Built on Video, GWU's Lorena Barba explains why the Practical Numerical Methods with Python course she and colleagues put together has but one video: "Why didn't we have more video? The short answer is budget and time: making good-quality videos is expensive & making simple yet effective educational videos is time consuming, if not necessarily costly. #NumericalMOOC was created on-the-fly, with little budget. But here's my point: expensive, high-production-value videos are not necessary to achieve a quality learning experience." When the cost of producing an MOOC can exceed $100,000 per course, Barba suggests educators pay heed to Donald Bligh's 1971 observation that "dazzling presentations do not necessarily result in learning." So what would Barba do? "We designed the central learning experience [of #NumericalMOOC] around a set of IPython Notebooks," she explains, "and meaningful yet achievable mini-projects for students. I guarantee learning results to any student that fully engages with these!"

Comments

MOOC = massive open online course

[Racemaniac]

Since the summary didn't bother mentioning that tiny detail.

There's a lot of stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

On YouTube that is pretty good... And I guarantee you that it didn't cost a hundred grand to make... You just need a camera - and a $200 Canon works great for this - and a good presenter. Guess what: good teachers usually make good presenters, and since you are already paying them to do that, that solves that problem. If you want to get really fancy, you can even spring for an external mic to clip onto the shirt they are wearing...