Confusing MOOCs with online classes is common in the media. But at what point do we consider an online class population “massive?” This article about a combined online class – a collaboration between University of Texas and University of Utah students – is a success by common metrics of participation and retention. I am not sure that many hundreds of students in two schools should be confused with an xMOOC (or even a cMOOC.) Regardless, PBS shares an interesting review of an online class with a fresh new structure that seems to be working. “Students at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Utah are currently engaged in a collaborative online class, Social Media Journalism, which combines the convenience of a MOOC with the engagement of a medium-sized lecture — and the completion rate is more than 95 percent. The engagement scales, too: students at both schools, 1,300 miles apart, are taking the class together, interacting with each other, viewing the same lesson modules and building a news aggregation service on various social media platforms. The difference is they get a personal instructor and smaller groups of familiar classmates.”
via Turning a MOOC Into a Network of Schools Collaborating | Mediashift | PBS.
New Images of Education 