Wednesday, July 8, 2015

MOOCs experience II

Hello, my friends and followers – Something I learned from my experience from MOOC is that I tended not to say hi to the audience! – I was thinking, I already say hi in the first video of each topic, why I should say hi in each video – of course, and explanation came. Some people can choose which video to watch, and they may jump to video four instead going in consecutive order.
For a professor who likes to teach in stages, this was a challenge. It seems like preparing a video for an MOOC is like creating a TV series, each chapter has a beginning, end and topic. Each chapter has to stand by itself. I initially prepared it as soup opera style. You cannot understand a chapter if you do not watch it in sequence, and skills are acquired gradually, each chapter depends on the other.
I learned, oh my I learned with Blood, each time I have to re-do my videos because I forgot to say hi! – So beginning today, I will begin each blog with “HI.”
Me- Saying good bye- The last video was the hardest.

An MOOC usually deals with 1000+ students or followers, not all of them are actually your students so, the statistics say than 7% finish the course. I wanted to beat so badly those statistics.  As we speak, I began with 450 students (a good number for being the first time) and ended with 280 active students. 62% of participation. I should be proud of it.  What I did not change is the number of people who actually buy the certificates. It remained in 5% - still some days to go – but that is about average.
·         I am not really a seller – I just enjoying teaching, 5% doesn’t bother me at all. I know the MOOCs Open online academy owner may be disappointed but as I statistic professor (yes, I love statistics, and teach it!), I am not.  Just Reich (2014) found out that certification rates typically range from 2 to 10 percent when we divide the number of certificate earners by the total number of students who have ever registered for a course.However, and here is the catch – he said ” The study found that on average among survey respondents, 22 percent of students who intended to complete a course earned a certificate,  compared with 6 percent of students who intended to browse a course.”  It makes perfect sense. That means of the 450 students that I had, not only of them intended to buy the certificate, a big portion of them wanted just to learn. So If we follow Reich Match, here it is. I had 280 active suppose 20% intended to buy the certificate, that is 56 people, now of this 56 – 5% will actually buy it – that means 3 people. Yikes!. The MOOCs owners will be wondering if this was actually worthed.
I am not wondering, I believe it is totally worthed. I  invested as well I brought a camera, computers, equipment, and dedicated countless hours to create each of the lessons. I am so pleased with my 62 % that you can not no believe it. I asked my students for testimonials and they comments were amazing…so rewarding, that I am ready to prepare another course by free again. I am now preparing my book on the topic of personal Branding – I am calling it “From Bragging to Branding.” –  

Now, here is a question for you, Do you think that the MOOC phenomenon is compared with the You Tube phenomenon? 

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