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

Posted by Soulskill on from the better-learning-through-animated-GIFs dept.

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!"

3 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. MOOC = massive open online course by Racemaniac · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  2. There's a lot of stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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...

  3. Call me an old guy with a short attention span but by nicomede · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have never been able to stand more than 5 minutes of a MOOC video before telling myself 'OK, I'll find a proper textbook.'.
    I usually have a basic view of the MOOC topic ; at least the textbook allows me to skim it and dig deeper on the points that I'm interested in.
    Just sitting at my desk and watching a video is usually boring and requires to watch the complete segment before realising it was not what I was looking for.

    The same goes for all these video tutorials : why bother making a 5-min youtube video on some software installation when a one-page text with command lines would be appropriate?