27.06.2013 Views

learning - Academic Conferences Limited

learning - Academic Conferences Limited

learning - Academic Conferences Limited

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Kaido Kikkas et al.<br />

However, in the Estonian context we can not speak about “massive open online courses” because the<br />

number of non-credit participants that enroll to the courses is typically rather small. Therefore we will<br />

use the term “open course” in this paper.<br />

3. The Wikiversity experience<br />

In our case we have used Wikiversity to provide open courses. Wikiversity is one of the projects under<br />

Wikimedia Foundation that also governs Wikipedia. It is somewhat less structured than Wikipedia,<br />

supporting <strong>learning</strong> communities, their <strong>learning</strong> resources and <strong>learning</strong> activities. In our courses<br />

Wikiversity is typically used for course syllabus, participant enrolment and <strong>learning</strong> resources. All the<br />

participants have their personal blogs to submit their course assignments. This kind of use of wikis<br />

and blogs is inspired by open courses organized by David Wiley (2007) and Teemu Leinonen<br />

(Leinonen, Vaden and Suoranta, 2009).<br />

We claim that in our daily teaching practice, open courses have evolved beyond the initial<br />

experimentation phase and reached the high level of scalability. From 2009 to 2011, we have run<br />

(separately from each other) more than 20 full-scale open courses in three different higher education<br />

institutions in Estonia:<br />

Social Software and Network Communities (SSNC), 4 ECTS M.Sc. course with 226 participants<br />

(total for all years).<br />

Ethics and Law in New Media (ELNM), 5 ECTS international M.Sc. course with 44 participants.<br />

Ethical, Social and Professional Aspects of Information Technology (ESPAIT), a 4 ECTS<br />

introductory-level B.Sc. course with 161 participants<br />

Standards and Specifications for eLearning Tools (SSET), 4 ECTS M.A. course with 20<br />

participants<br />

Learning Environments and Learning Networks (LELN), 3 ECTS M.A. course with 28 participants.<br />

Creating Digital Learning Resources (CDLR), 3 ECTS M.A. course with 29 participants<br />

Working with Sources, Referencing and Reference Management in ELearning (WSRRME), a 10 -<br />

week, 100% online professional development course for teachers and educational technologists,<br />

38 participants.<br />

Creating and Using Open Educational Resources (CUOER), a 10-week, 100% online course for<br />

teachers and educational technologists, 31 participants.<br />

Didactics of Informatics, a 4 ECTS M.A. course with 42 participants.<br />

Basics of Instructional Design, a 3 ECTS M.A. course with 45 participants.<br />

Active <strong>learning</strong> in Informatics Lessons, a 3 ECTS M.A. course with 26 participants.<br />

Professional Development with ePortfolio, a 12-week. 100% online professional development<br />

course for teachers, 12 participants<br />

M-Learning, 12 week long 100% online professional development course for teachers, 10<br />

participants<br />

As Wikiversity-based courses can be run in a variety of ways, the brief descriptions of two possible<br />

approaches used by us wll follow below.<br />

3.1 Approach 1: Wiki-centred course designs<br />

Each student was expected to have a blog (RSS feed for posts was required – both free services like<br />

Blogger or WordPress and standalone installations were allowed), a Skype account and an e-mail<br />

address. Also at the SSNC and ELNM courses, they also needed a wiki space (either using a free<br />

service like Wikidot.com or setting up their own) for teams of 4-5.<br />

372

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!