Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2014 | Page 16

Internet Learning
needs of individual students, especially in
the online learning space. Big data will give
institutions the predictive tools they need
to improve learning outcomes for individual
students. By designing curricula that
collect and interpret data at every step of
the learning process, customized modules,
assignments, and feedback can be targeted
to student needs in the moment.
Time and other authors will settle
those questions, but there is no doubt
that MOOCs have already had a significant
influence on the future course of online
learning, and continue to do so. Whether
it be through the offerings of the large-scale
providers, or via the Anti-MOOC-inspired
online courses at individual universities or
consortia, online learning has earned its
place in the academy.
Welcome to the new era of online
learning!
Online Learning in Practice
A
sampling applications of massively
open online courses highlighted in
recent Horizon Project research includes
the following:
• Acamica is a platform used by Latin
American learners to access interactive
courses from experts in different
areas. As students progress, they build
online knowledge profiles to share with
prospective employers or institutions:
go.nmc.org/aca.
• Bossier Parish Community College offers
an online degree program in which
students can do a majority or all of
their coursework online. The online instruction
involves presentations, video
tutorials, discussion boards, and other
learning activities: go.nmc.org/bpc.
• The Buena Vista School District
launched the Buena Vista Online
Academy, an online alternative to a
brick-and-mortar school for students:
go.nmc.org/bvsdoa.
• Bunker Hill and Mass Bay Community
College partnered with MIT’s edX to offer
MOOCs to their students. They are
the first two-year colleges to work with
the popular MOOC provider: go.nmc.
org/edXMA.
• The California Institute of Technology
piloted the "Learning from Data"
MOOC in April 2012. The first offering
included live streaming and real-time
Q&A sessions with the participants,
along with automated grading and discussion
forums. Since then, it has been
offered four times, with over 100,000
enrolled students. go.nmc.org/caltech
• Colorado Technical College developed
an online learning platform called
MUSE (My Unique Student Experience),
which caters to students’ varying
learning styles: go.nmc.org/muse.
• The Games MOOC is a community site
woven around a series of three courses
about the use of games in education,
including traditional games, massively
multiplayer online role-playing games,
game-based learning, and immersive
environments. The first courses were
piloted in the fall of 2012. go.nmc.org/
gamesmooc
• The Gates Foundation awarded a grant
to Ohio State University to design a
MOOC for Coursera. This course will
engage participants as writers, reviewers,
and editors in a series of interactive
reading, composing, and research activities
with assignments designed to help
them become more effective consumers
and producers of alphabetic, visual, and
multimodal texts. OSU faculty members
have developed the Writers Exchange,
an idea-networking website to
support the course: go.nmc.org/osu.
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