Exploring MOOC-Based activities in teaching english

Introduction

At the moment, the biggest news in the field of education has become the possibility of distance learning through online e-courses.

The transition of education to the Internet world began in the 2000s due to the advent of open Internet courses when well-known world universities began to make recorded lectures freely available. The demand for such educational services turned out to be extremely high, and already in 2008, a fundamentally new method of education was formed called the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).

The abbreviation MOOC consists of four separate terms.

Massive: this form of online learning involves a large number of students, unlimited by geographical location.

Open: online training is free for everyone.

Online (online): distance learning courses are conducted using online communication tools. All materials are freely available in electronic form.

Course (course): structured and orderly presentation of information with specific goals, work rules, and time constraints, which, however, may change for each individual participant.

A massive open online course is a training course with massive interactive participation using e-learning technologies and open access via the Internet, one of the forms of distance education. As additions to traditional course materials such as videos, reading, and homework, massive open online courses make it possible to use interactive user forums that help create and maintain communities of students, teachers, and assistants.

The Massive Online Course (MOOC) is a free online course that offers training in a huge number of different subjects and is open to everyone with access to a computer and the Internet. The purpose of MOOC courses is to connect students with teachers and with each other around the world.

Despite the fact that distance learning gained some popularity along with the growth of Internet use in the late XX – early XXI century, mass online courses became widely popular only in 2012 when projects such as Coursera, Udacity, and Udemy attracted the first investments.

Video recordings of lectures of various educational institutions began to appear on the Internet in the late 1990s, but only massive open online courses, which appeared for the first time in the early 2010s, made it possible for students and teachers to communicate interactively, as well as take exams online. Such sites are designed for students of various levels of training – both beginners and experienced professionals. The most popular mass online courses attract hundreds of thousands of students.

Over the past 10 years, many platforms with MOOC courses have appeared on the Internet. However, not all of them are truly worthy of your attention, and not all of them give degrees that are trustworthy. We have compiled a list of international resources with MOOC courses that are really worth turning to if you dream of getting an online education abroad and a new experience without leaving home.

1. Coursera

Coursera is a popular resource for online education. Both short-term and full-fledged long-term study programs are available to students from all over the world. At the moment, over 500 courses from hundreds of the best universities in the world are already presented on the platform. Among them are such educational institutions as Stanford University, Princeton University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, Bocconi University, Paris Central School, etc. Education on the Coursera platform is free, except for obtaining full academic degrees.

2. Canvas

Unlike resources such as Coursera, which we wrote about above, the Canvas platform is not limited to courses from prestigious universities. This site features courses from a wide range of providers, including numerous lesser-known educational institutions. This makes Canvas courses more diverse and accessible, especially for students who have never studied online before. The platform offers a huge number of training courses, most of which are free. In addition, here you can find both courses that take place on specific dates, and courses with a flexible schedule, where you can start studying at any time. By the way, you can study at Canvas not only in English but also in other languages, such as Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish.

3. Udacity

The Udacity platform is not associated with any particular university. Instead, it offers courses provided by different educational institutions from different countries of the world. The main feature of Udacity is that this portal specializes in programs in the most relevant fields, such as computer science, programming, data processing, artificial intelligence, and business. In short, studying on the portal is ideal for fans of modern technologies, IT, and exact sciences who want to get a sought-after profession.

Materials and methods

The Coursera platform served as the material for the study. The study involved 1st-year undergraduates in the discipline innovative teaching methods. In order to develop their skills in the knowledge of technology and their use during the lesson, the course "Get interactive: Practice teaching with technology" was chosen. It was attended by 14 students majoring in foreign language: two foreign languages. The course took three weeks.

Results and discussion

MOOC is not just distance education courses, it is a separate teaching method that includes a large range of diverse activities. And like every technique, MOOC has its advantages and disadvantages. We studied under the MOOC distance education program at our university and after completing the course and using and studying various methods, we came to this result. In course "Get interactive: Practice teaching with technology", students could watch videos of lectures and information about methods and technologies that they can use in the classroom. For example, such tools and platforms as Moodle, Canvas, Whiteboard, Bright Space, WordPress, Blogger, also for recording videos and photo screenshot tools, tools for conducting lessons in a remote form and information about methods such as flipped classroom, blended learning and synchronous and asynchronous learning. The course itself provided video lectures, gave students the opportunity to communicate and discuss issues among the participants, and to consolidate the material, interesting tasks were given using technologies that were evaluated by the participants themselves.

Now, we want to write about the advantages and disadvantages of the MOOC platform. At the very beginning, let's distribute the advantages of the platform:

1. Contrary to popular misconception, online learning does not mean that there is no feedback from the student. On the contrary, MOOC presupposes the presence of numerous channels of communication with the teacher-presenter of the course, as well as with the rest of the listeners.
2. Useful connections. Students have the opportunity to organize a community on the current online course, where they will not only share knowledge with each other but also act as examiners. Usually, each participant in a distance learning course must check the work of several students. In turn, his work will also be checked by several listeners. Thus, a group of students is formed who are interested in the subject of the course and their professional development in the designated area.
3. Quick feedback and evaluation. After passing the papers, students receive an assessment of their knowledge almost instantly. At the same time, each recipient of online education has the opportunity to retake the exam or rewrite the test.
4. The best teachers in the world. Online training is conducted by teachers of the highest qualification from the world's most famous universities. And each student of the distance course has the opportunity to communicate with the presenter personally.
5. Free online training. The term "open" itself, encrypted in the name of MOOC, means "free", or conditionally free. As a rule, there is no payment for listening to the course itself and participating in tasks.

The MOOC system is aimed at obtaining knowledge solely on the initiative of the listener and assumes a high degree of self-control and motivation. Therefore, the disadvantages of online education include:

1. Independent development of educational material. The task of the distance learning course is to provide the listener with all the necessary information for independent development. If in the case of full-time education, a student can contact a teacher directly after a lecture or even in the process of reading it, then this function is limited within the MOOC. One presenter is not able to answer the questions of thousands of listeners.
2. The lack of total control over the performance of tasks. Completing assignments and final certification is entirely the responsibility of the student. It is not difficult to deceive the system, but only the listener decides what he needs a certificate for – for professional and personal growth, or for a "tick".

Online courses open access to any kind of education. You can get a higher education online at any university in the world, and become the owner of a confirmation certificate. If you already have higher education and would like to gain additional knowledge in your chosen field, you can remotely improve your qualifications. If your chosen field of activity does not suit you, you can retrain remotely. The topics of online MOOC courses are incredibly wide.

Conclusion

The development of information technologies has provoked the search for new learning formats on the part of the academic community, allowing content to be delivered globally, and not within one institution. This was the main reason for the emergence of such educational technology as the MOOC course, which can train up to several tens of thousands of people. The development of the MOOC has many positive aspects for the university, starting with filling a new niche in the educational market and ending with new technologies in teaching and research.

Also, the inclusion of mass open online courses by universities in the learning process looks like a suitable alternative to resource accumulation. In the context of an exponentially growing number of specialties, it is becoming increasingly difficult for universities to support the provision of these needs with an increase in resources, therefore modern higher schools are in search of tools to solve this issue. But today, pedagogical technologies for creating and maintaining MOOC are not at the level of development so that mass open online courses can be integrated into the educational processes of universities as full-fledged courses. Therefore, when building the process of using the MOOC, the following requirements must be taken into account:

1. Based on the available resources and opportunities, the university should determine the share of MOOC necessary for implementation in the educational process. The university should take into account the difference between the sets of knowledge in different faculties and departments, therefore, it is necessary for faculties and departments to be given the opportunity to determine the technologies for implementing mass open online courses in their educational programs.
2. The university should provide teachers with the opportunity to conduct hybrid courses and courses with web support, encourage the use of MOOC to support their own disciplines by taking them into account in the workload.
3. Online learning is far from a new stage for education, and the MOОС is just a logical continuation of this development. But, despite the large number of advantages and their rapid development, it cannot be said that mass online courses are a formed educational product ready for integration into the educational processes of universities. The reason for this is the novelty of this format. Educational institutions are at the stage of experimenting with technology, the differences between the MOOC and the classical course at the university are too great, and the format of mass courses is constantly changing, there is a search for new effectively working forms.