Never in the history of humankind have we had an offer of global knowledge as in our days. With the improvement of the bandwidth and the growth of Internet users (2,400 million users in the world, 45 million of whom are Mexican), in the last couple of years institutions such as the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other institutions of higher education have put courses on the web that anyone can view for free.
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) is the name of this relatively new phenomenon. One of its most notable examples is that of coursera.org, a portal that has had more than five million students. This site has 470 online courses with 92 partner universities offering courses of six weeks or more on various topics. It is important to note that the vast majority of these courses are taught in English (see Figure 1).
Another truly amazing development is that of khanacademy.org, initiated by Salman Khan. This man, who went from being a mere broker to becoming the leader of a small empire of virtual education online, created a portal that has had a serious impact on basic education. First, he significantly influenced the way math is learned, and then he covered other areas of knowledge. Currently, he has more than 4,000 primary education videos that have been seen by more than 235 million students. Today, more than 1,000 of the videos found on the Khan Academy’s portal are translated into Spanish, thanks to the funding from the Carlos Slim Foundation.
The courses that are open to the public depend on sponsorship and philanthropic investments to support this concept. As we can see in the graph, the entire array of service providers includes civil societies, risk capital or universities that have allocated part of their budget to developing these courses, and companies that have understood that “the best investment is to support knowledge.” With this vision – and the commitment to be involved in the offering of knowledge in Spanish – aulabierta.org was founded in September of 2013.
In this system, everyone is free to structure his or her courses in the best possible way. However, it is important to consider the users and the new technologies in order to obtain the best results. For example, it is necessary to take into account that a person’s concentration on the Internet is limited, as well as the time that can be devoted to the courses that have been selected. We must not forget that students enroll in these courses without being required to do so and without the expectation of receiving – most of the time – curricular credits as is the case with university students. The beauty of the online courses is that students’ enrollment is free and voluntary. Their motivation is to expand their realm of knowledge, not to obtain a certificate, diploma or official degree.
For this reason, the courses should be designed so that students can devote an hour a week to them, in sessions of 10 to 20 minutes a day. In addition to this advantage, the technology makes it possible to access a word processor next to the course in order to take notes. It is also possible to stop the video at any time and go back and listen again to what is being explained. In this way, in six or seven weeks students finish an online course with a substantive idea of the topic, with material to review and read, and with files of the presentations – if any – for a subsequent consultation.
For me, the experience of taking the “Introduction to Philosophy” course that the University of Edinburgh gave through coursera.org was unforgettable. I was very surprised to receive a message telling me not to send emails, and that I should use the forum instead because – as I could well imagine – it was impossible to answer the 100,000 students enrolled in this course. At the same time, I decided to participate in this exhibition of knowledge and create aulabierta.org. The purpose of this site is to promote culture in Mexico. To begin, my working group and I put the 10 conferences on the 2013-2014 opera season of the Metropolitan Opera House (MET) of New York at the public’s disposal. Later, we will upload two courses that will be available in January 2014: “Sustainability and Business”, taught by Dr. Antonio Lloret, professor at the ITAM, and “Guadalajara, the occident pearl,” sponsored by Volaris, a company that knows that #ElArteEleva.?
Massive Online Open Courses: MOOC
Never in the history of humankind have we had an offer of global knowledge as in our days. With the improvement of the bandwidth and the growth of Internet users (2,400 million users in the world, 45 million of whom are Mexican), in the last couple of years institutions such as the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other institutions of higher education have put courses on the web that anyone can view for free.
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) is the name of this relatively new phenomenon. One of its most notable examples is that of coursera.org, a portal that has had more than five million students. This site has 470 online courses with 92 partner universities offering courses of six weeks or more on various topics. It is important to note that the vast majority of these courses are taught in English (see Figure 1).
Another truly amazing development is that of khanacademy.org, initiated by Salman Khan. This man, who went from being a mere broker to becoming the leader of a small empire of virtual education online, created a portal that has had a serious impact on basic education. First, he significantly influenced the way math is learned, and then he covered other areas of knowledge. Currently, he has more than 4,000 primary education videos that have been seen by more than 235 million students. Today, more than 1,000 of the videos found on the Khan Academy’s portal are translated into Spanish, thanks to the funding from the Carlos Slim Foundation.
The courses that are open to the public depend on sponsorship and philanthropic investments to support this concept. As we can see in the graph, the entire array of service providers includes civil societies, risk capital or universities that have allocated part of their budget to developing these courses, and companies that have understood that “the best investment is to support knowledge.” With this vision – and the commitment to be involved in the offering of knowledge in Spanish – aulabierta.org was founded in September of 2013.
In this system, everyone is free to structure his or her courses in the best possible way. However, it is important to consider the users and the new technologies in order to obtain the best results. For example, it is necessary to take into account that a person’s concentration on the Internet is limited, as well as the time that can be devoted to the courses that have been selected. We must not forget that students enroll in these courses without being required to do so and without the expectation of receiving – most of the time – curricular credits as is the case with university students. The beauty of the online courses is that students’ enrollment is free and voluntary. Their motivation is to expand their realm of knowledge, not to obtain a certificate, diploma or official degree.
For this reason, the courses should be designed so that students can devote an hour a week to them, in sessions of 10 to 20 minutes a day. In addition to this advantage, the technology makes it possible to access a word processor next to the course in order to take notes. It is also possible to stop the video at any time and go back and listen again to what is being explained. In this way, in six or seven weeks students finish an online course with a substantive idea of the topic, with material to review and read, and with files of the presentations – if any – for a subsequent consultation.
For me, the experience of taking the “Introduction to Philosophy” course that the University of Edinburgh gave through coursera.org was unforgettable. I was very surprised to receive a message telling me not to send emails, and that I should use the forum instead because – as I could well imagine – it was impossible to answer the 100,000 students enrolled in this course. At the same time, I decided to participate in this exhibition of knowledge and create aulabierta.org. The purpose of this site is to promote culture in Mexico. To begin, my working group and I put the 10 conferences on the 2013-2014 opera season of the Metropolitan Opera House (MET) of New York at the public’s disposal. Later, we will upload two courses that will be available in January 2014: “Sustainability and Business”, taught by Dr. Antonio Lloret, professor at the ITAM, and “Guadalajara, the occident pearl,” sponsored by Volaris, a company that knows that #ElArteEleva.?