Friday, November 1, 2013

ACRL-Virtual Worlds Interest Group Program, October 27, 2013

 

"MOOCS and Constructivist Information Literacy"
Valerie Hill, Texas Womens University; Michelle Keba, Nova Southeastern University;
Ilene Frank, University of the People



Val, Michelle, and Ilene gave a fantastic presentation on MOOCS and Information Literacy and librarianship.



Michelle Keba (left),  Ilene Pratt (center), Valerie Hill (right)
Michelle provided a brief definition of MOOCS and outlined their development and history.  She went over the different types of MOOCs and talked about a couple of the providers such as Coursera, and edX.




Ilene went over the in's and out's of Copyright and MOOCS. Included was information on who has access to the materials and the course as well as what kinds of resources and uses are permitted.





Valerie explored what MOOCS have to offer and why libraries should be interested in them.  She presented examples of MOOCs that had virtual world components, such as the Anne Frank MOOC from Fall 2012.  In this MOOC, educators meetings were held, and assignments for participants, were presented inside Second Life.  Participants felt that this virtual worlds component made the MOOC experience a more powerful, immersive experience and a better tool for learning.




Finally, she provided examples and details of how librarians are exploring and participating in MOOCs.  These include bringing their expertise on doing content curation and selecting appropriate, scholarly resources for use in MOOCs.   The program was very well attended and a lively discussion followed.  




1 comment:

  1. Thank you, Joe! Just wanted to add that Val talked about xMOOCs and cMOOCs. xMOOCs are linear and very much like a traditional F2F course. The instructor posts videos and there are quizzes and tests as the course proceeds. As I understand it, cMOOCs are guided by the learners, going in whichever directions the learners choose to investigate. It was a very interesting program!

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