I tried a MOOC

 

Through work I came across a company in Galway offering their version of MOOCs, the site is http://alison.com. I completed a course on Google Apps and passed the assessment, this was a series of questions and I was able to guess a few.

The course consisted of a number of video files about Google Apps, the security and real world business experiences. The assessment was 11 questions based on these videos.

After passing the assessment I can pay for a Certificate, €15 for a PDF – €25 for a parchment – €35 for a framed parchment. I did not buy a certificate.

The whole course took less than an hour. They also offer diploma courses that I am sure would take longer. I will investigate further at a later stage.

Discussions

RE: I tried a MOOC

Hugh, I’m familiar with the courses Alison provide. I would classify  them as “online courses” as opposed to “MOOCs”. The only difference would be the level of content involved. I suppose it opens the debate on what exactly a MOOC is?I was wondering whether or not it would be considered a MOOC OK, but as you have said it starts a debate.

I went with it because they are available to all online courses. I suppose the question it raised with me is if massive relates to content or availability. I took it to mean the availability to a massive amount of students. i.e. on the WWW.

After reading your post I went to the Alison website and saw a link to an article in the Sunday Business Post (http://alison.com/images/mail/sunday_business_post.pdf) which mentions Alison. The article makes for interesting reading if only because the journalist appears to be quite badly informed/ behind the times. The article claims that Alison were the inventors of MOOCs in 2007. However the site MOOC news and reviews http://moocnewsandreviews.com/a-short-history-of-moocs-and-distance-learning/ claims that the first MOOC ran out of the Candian University of Manitoba in 2008. I would speculate that Alison were already running free online courses and simply started calling them MOOCs when that became the new buzz-word.

I think you are correct that they were providing online courses and jumped on the MOOC band wagon.

Wikipedia, the shame in referenceing the site, states a MOOC is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web and the phrase MOOC was coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier of the University of Prince Edward Island and Senior Research Fellow Bryan Alexander of the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education.

Maybe Alison, and others, were providing such course before the phrase MOOC was coined but they do not offer the collaborative environment that seems to be an important part of a MOOC.