Do We Learn Online?
Of course, the answer is that some people do. The worldwide web can deliver as much content as any book does and with technology, it can be interactive, dynamic and almost limitless. This blog has been active for almost two years now. With more than 700 posts, this blog is certainly more than thousands of pages long. The blog covers topics under basic education emphasizing the role of evidence-based and peer-reviewed research in deciding what actions must be taken to address challenges and problems in schools in the Philippines and the United States. Currently, there have been more than 600,000 pageviews from about 350,000 visitors. Most of the pageviews and visits to this blog come from the Philippines. The important question then is whether readers from the Philippines are learning from the content provided by this blog. Four percent of 350,000 is 14,000. I grab the number four percent from findings reported by schools that provide courses online. Four percent is the fraction of registrants in massive open online courses (MOOCs) who actually finish.
Obviously, I am expecting too much. This blog after all is not from Harvard, MIT or UPenn. Reading this blog also does not grant the viewer a certificate of completion. This blog does not confer credits toward professional development. This blog does not perform any assessment so it cannot even determine whether a reader is in fact getting the main points of a post or not.
Harvard and MIT just came out with their report on the first year of MOOCs offered by the two institutions. The results are no different from those of the University of Pennsylvania, which were highlighted here in a previous article. Harvard and MIT offered the following courses:
And the results are summarized in the following figure:
Although both United States and the Philippines appear on the list of top 25 countries by numbers of registrants, both countries disappear when it comes to completion rate (not even in the top 30):
It illustrates what one sees online almost everyday. One only needs to see which posts get so many shares and likes on Facebook, and compare their content with those provided by these MOOCs. One often sees "online learning" as a phrase, but the two seem to be not a match made in heaven. We are still quite a long way from learning online.
Obviously, I am expecting too much. This blog after all is not from Harvard, MIT or UPenn. Reading this blog also does not grant the viewer a certificate of completion. This blog does not confer credits toward professional development. This blog does not perform any assessment so it cannot even determine whether a reader is in fact getting the main points of a post or not.
Harvard and MIT just came out with their report on the first year of MOOCs offered by the two institutions. The results are no different from those of the University of Pennsylvania, which were highlighted here in a previous article. Harvard and MIT offered the following courses:
And the results are summarized in the following figure:
Although both United States and the Philippines appear on the list of top 25 countries by numbers of registrants, both countries disappear when it comes to completion rate (not even in the top 30):
It illustrates what one sees online almost everyday. One only needs to see which posts get so many shares and likes on Facebook, and compare their content with those provided by these MOOCs. One often sees "online learning" as a phrase, but the two seem to be not a match made in heaven. We are still quite a long way from learning online.
Do you want to spend
ReplyDeleteyour time with a great pleasure? If so, you may take a journey on it. It will
give you a great pleasure. slearn online.