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ERIC Number: EJ1045842
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 7
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1068-3844
EISSN: N/A
Hybrid Identities & MOOCs: The Implications of Massive Open Online Courses for Multicultural Civic Education
Afsari-Mamagani, Grace
Multicultural Education, v21 n2 p2-8 Win 2014
Massive open online courses (MOOCs), delivered through platforms like Coursera, edX, and Udacity, offer content from well-known universities and professors, at no cost, to students across the globe. Although they deliver thematically coherent material in instructional videos and supplemental materials, these online courses demand that users "manage their own learning" and take individualized approaches to interacting with the material, instructors, technological interface, and other student users. While unable to perfectly replace traditional in-person institutions, MOOCs adopt the Deweyan legacy of student-centered experiential education. Humanities-based courses in particular rely for success on interaction between students, including assignment peer reviews (as opposed to the automated grading utilized in programming, modeling, and calculations-based courses) and conceptual discussion. Using three Coursera offerings--"Aboriginal Worldviews and Education," "Introduction to Engineering Mechanics," and "Internet History, Technology, and Security"--as occasional case studies, the author suggests that by appropriating a networked learning model and the core principles of connectivism, allowing for the concurrent deconstruction and (re)establishment of user identities, and providing a space for the diffusion of triggers of difference, such online courses can implement and bolster multicultural civic education.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A