Final Reflection on MOOC's....Lots to Love!

I wanted to take a couple weeks after completing my MOOC, Orin Starn's course on Sports and Society, before writing up my final thoughts. It allowed some time to let the experience sink in, and let me form my general opinions on the process.

The Positives of the MOOC:

Before I even started the MOOC, I was pleasantly surprised by the wide variety of courses from very credible institutions that were offered. Topics ranged from simple to wildly complex and there were thousands to choose from.

I quite enjoyed the learning style of the MOOC. The videos were interesting, the assignments were very manageable and the time commitment was about 5-10 hours a week (depending on how quickly you did the readings). The feedback from the assessments was instant, and it was satisfying to see the checkmarks of passed sections as you progressed through the course. I thought the fact that there were hundreds of people taking my MOOC from all over the world was also pretty cool.

I was also very surprised about how I felt a connection to Orin, the instructor. I enjoyed his videos, and his personality. He even took us into his home in one of the sections. I did not think that personal connections to the instructor were really possible in a MOOC, but I would have to say that it was there, even if it was just one-sided.

Another reason I wanted to wait was to see how the course material stuck around in my head and what key outcomes I remembered. Video lectures and readings are fairly effective teaching techniques for me, so when I think back on the course, I have retained much of the material.


The Drawbacks of the MOOC:

Watching videos and reading may work for me, but it's not the best way to learn for others. There is a lack of variety in the coursework and assignments. Logistically this makes sense, but still is a limiting factor.

When it comes to the student assessment, the sheer number of students in a MOOC limits assessment to multiple choice, simple short answer, and true or false types of work. There is simply too many students to have people grade projects, presentations, papers, group work, learning journals, blogs ect. When proper assessment is lacking, the validity of the MOOC will always be questioned. It's hard to see counting a MOOC as a class towards a degree. This is one way that a MOOC differs from an online course offered at a University or College.

Ethics is also a factor when it comes to MOOC's. It's tough to identify who really did take the course. Perhaps someone else took the MOOC for you that's done it in your name. Also even in my MOOC I could have easily created a fake account and done all the tests repeatedly, failing of course, until I knew what the right answers where to the test questions. I could then have made my real account, and proceeded to get 100% in the course without really learning anything. I suspect that as online security and technology progress though that MOOCs can become much more secure. I don't think the time is too far off when your retinal scan could log you in. Biometrics is certainly a field that will impact MOOCs and their validity in the future.

Photo Credit: devaraj_arts via Compfight cc

Another drawback is that there really is no student/teacher connection. As much as I enjoyed Orin, like I said, it was a one way street. Good teachers show they care and develop a relationship with their students.

A final real challenge for me was the time management. You need to be on top of things weekly or you can get behind really easily. Obviously someone with better time management skills than myself would probably love the ability to work ahead and get it done well ahead of time!

Final Thoughts:

I was satisfied with my choice to do a MOOC. It was a good experience and was perhaps a glimpse into what the future of learning holds. Despite the drawbacks of MOOC's I see a lot of potential in them. I look forward to monitoring the progress, or evolution, of the MOOC, something that I did not even know existed before the start of this course!

Leaning Online- The Future of Learning? Photo used with permission of Regina Catholic Schools.

 

Week 6 and 7 is Due When? Oh Jeez.

The crunch was on in Sports and Society via Coursera. In order to complete the course and receive my certificate of completion I needed to have the entire course done by the end of October.

A classic from my room, I needed to heed my own advice here!

So the rest of my life had to be put on hold while I tried to cram week 6 and week 7 into a weekend. Between readings, watching the videos and taking notes, and completing the homework assignment and taking the quiz on the unit, it took up most of my weekend. This for me is one of the pitfalls of a MOOC. It's great that you can flex your time, but it can be really easy to fall behind if you are not diligent in keeping up with your work. Traditional face to face classes, or even just our ECI 831 class has weekly meetings that help refocus your efforts on the course and keep you up to speed on expectations. This can be a challenging aspect of a MOOC course most certainly.

In the end I managed to finish the course on time and received my certificate! It certainly had a sense of satisfaction with the completion, just like other course. When I completed the course my average was 100%, a first for me I would have to admit. Assessment is another aspect of MOOCs that I will explore in my final post, as I'm not really sure how authentic the assessment of learning can really be in a course setup as this.

I'm glad I chose the MOOC option, it was a great experience and unique from other online courses I had taken. I look forward to doing my final post and weighing in the pros and cons of this learning style and other observations about my learnings.

Week 4 and 5...Gender Roles in Sports, Gay and Transgender Athletes and "The Fan"

I decided to power through weeks 4 and 5 together on my coursera course, Sport and Society by Orin Starn of Duke University. This week's topics were much more controversial and to me enlightening, as he touched on a lot of subjects I hadn't paid too much attention to, nor did I know much of the science behind some of these topics.

 

Women and Sport



To begin we looked at the history of women and sports and women athletes. In a quick summary women were basically not allowed to participate in many sports until halfway through the 20th century. Women were looked at as a "delicate creature" who should not be subjected to the rigors of sports such as soccer, rugby, cricket and many other such sports.

 

The activities that women were mostly relegated prior to the 20th century to were your country club sports, like badminton, and they were hardly dressed in athletic gear.

When women became more involved with athletics Orin made several excellent connections with society and the gender role of women. Even though women could be great athletes. The best example we examined was "Babe Didrikson". Her accomplishments included 2 gold medals and 1 silver in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. She was also such a great natural athlete she would pick up any sport and play it at a high level. She decided to pick up golf after the Olympics and qualified for and made the cut in every PGA golf tournament she entered in. She remains the only woman to make the cut in a men's PGA golf event. When the LPGA formed in 1950 she dominated the circuit with 41 career victories. She sadly passed away from cancer at the young age of 45.

Photo Credit: aldenjewell via Compfight cc

 



Amazing pioneering female athletes such as Babe Didrikson met much criticism for not settling in with the stereotypical female gender roles of the time. Consider this quote:

"It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring.

— sportswriter Joe Williams, New York World-Telegram, ^[1]

 



It really is a sad commentary of the thought process of some people in the 20th century. Orin interestingly pointed out a term coined, "The Apology", where female athletes still did gender role activities to help be accepted by society, such as "girly" photo shoots, getting married and having children, and being a homemaker.

Women's sports has certainly come a long way but women still take a back seat to the men. Male professional athletes earning potential can be almost unlimited, in the tens of millions of dollars per year, but most women top athletes can earn only a fraction of that.

Homosexuality, Transgender, and Sport

 

In this lectures Orin points out that sports can sometimes be ahead of the curve as in the case of Jackie Robinson. He was allowed to participate in professional baseball decades ahead of African Americans gaining other significant social rights.

 

In the case of gay athletes this is not the case however. In all of the major professional sports only two currently active athletes are openly gay, Michael Sam, a player on the Cowboys, and Jason Collins, a player for the Brooklyn Nets.



Michael Sam



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The topic of transgender athletes was particularly interesting, and I was admittedly uninformed when it came to the biology of such athletes. If you are unsure of the exactly transgender people are, take a look the Transgender APA page on the topic.

 

In class we examined the transgender MMA athlete Fallon Fox. This is the article we looked at for class that explains her situation. My initial reaction was that it's not really fair that someone born a man, who would have an inherent advantage with regards to muscle strength and density, would fight females professionally. However Orin continued to talk about western's culture tendency to look at sex as either all male or all female. When looking at the issue of sex, as it is actually described in science, sex is much more on a continuum than just being black and white, male and female.

 





There are many people born with various hormone and different chromosome makeups. For example males are usually born with an XY chromosome makeup but can be born with XXY makeups that give them many physical characteristics of a female. When looking at transgender athletes their biology isn't as easy as saying male or female, it's basically somewhere in-between our traditional western thinking.  

 

Fallon Fox

After week 4 and into week 5 we explored the phenomenon of the fan or "Fanatic". The readings were very interesting and there was a good article that delved deeper into the behavior of people in crowds. In a crowd people tend to stop thinking for themselves and act in ways that they would normally not. Individuals in the crowd lose capacity to think for themselves at times.

 

When this topic was brought up in class I thought of the Vancouver riots after the Canucks lost the 7th game of the Stanley Cup final. The acts the people committed would have never been the brainchild of one or two disgruntled fans, it was the crowd or mob mentality that lead them to their actions (in part anyway).

 

Photo Credit: steveleenow via Compfight cc

The topic of United States college sports was also brought up in the fan section. College sports in the United States generates money in the hundreds of millions and yet the college athletes are not allowed to get paid at all. The solution argued in our course readings is that there should be some sort of pay system for these athletes, and I couldn't agree more.

 

Photo Credit: James Willamor via Compfight cc

 

 

Some observations after weeks 4 and 5:

-From someone who considers themselves a knowledgeable sports fan, I was shocked to find out how little I knew about transgender athletes and the true biology of a male and female continuum.

-I really thought that a MOOC would be fairly generic and I wouldn't get to know the professor really at all. However, through the lectures, I am getting a good sense of the person Orin is and I really enjoy his teaching style. He is interesting and I like the topics he has chosen to incorporate into the course. There really is something for everyone.

-The course is almost finished! It's been a lot of time with the readings and videos but I feel I've learnt quite a bit and it's all been interesting.

 

Week 6 is next!

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2 and 3...a blur!

After an interesting first week in Duke University's course, Sports and Society, headed up by Orin Starn, I was looking forward to the week 2 and 3's lesson topics. I was shocked at both how interesting the content was and how the time was flying.

On Monday I finally had some time so I decided to throw myself into week 2. The lecture videos were excellently done. The topics included the globalization of sport, nationalism and sport, and finally wrapped up with athletes and social activism. Between the readings and studying the lecture videos it took me 2 hours, but it seemed like minutes.

The reading was an excerpt from Eduardo Galeano's book, Soccer in Sun and Shadow. Galeano is a famous Uruguayan journalist. It was very cleverly written and I really enjoyed the different style of writing he brought to the course.



The lecture topic of athletes and social activism was particularly riveting. Orin explored such key athletes as Tommie Smith and John Carlos and their who used their athletic status to speak out about social injustice and prejudice in the United States. These are the runners from the 1968 Olympic games who did the famous Black Power salute.

Orin also examines the opposite of the social activist athlete, and in this case he called them the "corporate athlete". This athlete goes out of their way to not say anything controversial in order to maximize their earning potential. Orin gave the classic quote from Michael Jordan, who when asked to support a democratic politician, refused, saying, "republicans buy shoes to", of course referring to sales of his Nike products he endorses.

Week 3 proved to be just as fascinating as the topics included race, sports, and identity in a multicultural world. The course covered and discussed such topics as imperialistic nostalgia and how they have been a part of the north American sports scene with respects to Native Americans. Orin explored such positive relationships as with Florida State University and the Seminole Tribe, and other more negative ones between the Washington Redskins and opponents of the use of the derogatory name.

Photo Credit: Keith Allison via Compfight cc

 



Between week 2 and 3 when it was all said and done I had invested about 6 hours of time, but it seemed like half of that. The topics are so well presented and interesting to me that I always look forward to the next lesson.

 

Observations about MOOCS and Sports and Society so far:

 

-The lectures are very interesting and Orin brings a very personal approach to teaching.

-The online quizzes and homework provide instant feedback which is great

-The world map is a cool feature. There is a nice community feel to such a huge course when you can learn together. The discussion forums are also very lively and bring a lot of different ideas and people together.

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

The MOOC Choice, I Caved...

Well Sunday was the first day of the week I got to sit down and actually get to some serious business, NFL Sunday Ticket, Ed800 Readings and catching up on my 831 by registering and starting my MOOC experience.

As the title indicates I decided to cave in my choice of MOOC. I'm already up to my neck in PD this year, and taking four classes this school year to finish up my masters degree. I chose the MOOC with in an area of great interest, and that is Sport and Society, offered on coursera by Duke professor Orin Starn. I always enjoyed anthropology in school and learning more about the history and the culture of sport was an easy choice for me. He had me hooked with his video entry.

The website hosting the course is easily accessible and signing up took minutes. The layout of the online course is very well done and each week's lessons, videos, and quizzes are clearly laid out. I loved the week one content on the introduction to sport and the origin of sport.

The presentation was 5 videos totalling about an hour of content. The required readings for week one were only about 15 pages. Once finished you are finished the readings and done watching the videos there is a small homework assignment, again all done online in your account. After that you  take on online quiz to "pass" that section. Pass all the sections and you are on your way to a coursera credit!

I learned quite a bit in the couple hours it took to complete week 1. Topics such as what makes something a sport, what are modern sport characteristics, and why do people love sport were all addressed in great detail.

I really liked the setup of week one and I look forward to the future lessons. It's really crazy to think about how many people can take courses in this format and how much "free" learning people can do in today's world!

MOOC's....so many choices

After the initial online session I was pretty sure I wanted to take the MOOC course project route and blog about that experience....well here is my first entry!

I was hesitant to sign up for another online course. I have taken one online course in my first 6 masters classes and it was an extremely heavy workload. Between reflection, research and analysis that online course had almost 75 pages of formal writing that had been submitted. While technology was the focus of the class, and the content interactive and well presented, I just didn't have the time for another class like that while taking two courses in this term.

When I realized that a major part of the course evaluation would be MOOC inside of a MOOC so to speak (sounds much dirtier than it really is) I really was happy with the freedom of choice.

I decided to start with coursera and https://www.coursera.org/course/sports was right on the home screen for me. I read the course and loved the intro the Duke professor put together and the content of the course is intriguing to me to say the least.

The next day at work talking with my principal about the course she loved the concept of how the course was set up. Also knowing that I want to get into admin she suggested I look at taking a MOOC based on education leadership to add to my resume and PD.

So I have a decision to make this weekend, satisfy my curiosity and delve into a topic near and dear to my heart, or upgrade my resume........hmmmmm......I suppose I have decision to make this weekend!