[Music]
today I want to take you to a great
adventure some of you might be looking
at my title and wonder how a concept as
close as your fingertips is related to
adventure let me answer that question by
tell you a short story about my three
biggest adventures the first one started
when I was 17 I was coming from a little
village in Lebanon and I travelled to
discover new food new culture new people
for that adventure I had to go to
Belgium which means I traveled 4,000
kilometers my next adventure started a
year later where I travelled to discover
many topics as psychoanalysis or
neuropsychology and statistics for that
adventure I had to travel a hundred
kilometres as I was going to the
University at addictive a few years
later I got to experience my third and
biggest adventure where I travelled to
discover concepts of law taught by
Harvard University or philosophy from
Edinburgh and how to do big data
analysis from Hong Kong Polytechnic
University or even jazz improvisation
techniques from Berklee College of Music
do you know how many kilometers I had to
travel for that adventures to happen yes
three kilometers
right in my living room it sounds like
science fiction right well it kind of is
only today we call it MOOCs massive open
online courses
what are MOOCs MOOCs are courses
provided by universities all over the
world they are presented as videos
recorded by professors at their
universities these videos are followed
by quizzes and assignments that you
and fill in to obtain grades if you have
enough grades you can even purchase a
certificate MOOCs have had so much
success that hundreds of universities
around the world have followed the
experience reaching today to around
seven hundred universities and to an
offer of more than six thousand eight
hundred and fifty courses you to that
popularity MOOCs have been qualified as
the revolution of online learning
therefore many researchers in
educational sciences as myself started
to take a look at least look MOOCs to
try to understand how they work I was
more specifically intrigued by one
finding which is that many learners
still experience difficulty studying
these courses so I wondered are MOOCs
really that great and if they are how
come are we experiencing so many
difficulties in order to answer these
questions I base myself on theories of
motivation why because motivation is
acknowledged to be one of the biggest
predictors of our performances in
learning there are many theories of
motivation but one of the most popular
ones is the one of DC and Ryan which is
called self-determination theory
according to this theory we all have
three basic and universal needs and it
is only when these needs are satisfied
that we can actually have a better
performance if we take a look at MOOCs
we understand why they are so popular
because actually they help us with their
characteristic and their tools to fill
in these needs let’s take a look
together at the needs and how MOOCs help
us to fulfill them the first one is the
need of autonomy so the need of autonomy
means that we need a behavior to come
sum of preferences and no desires in
August in order to have a better
performance and MOOCs are great in that
way because they offer us the choice to
for the place where you want to learn or
when you want to learn
and more specifically what you want to
learn as you can choose whatever course
you want but even better you don’t even
have to follow the whole course you can
choose a chapter of the course that you
need and just study that you can even
get a certificate which is called badge
that certifies your success on that
particular chapter but how come students
are still experiencing difficulties is
because they don’t really know how to
use these tools so in terms of autonomy
what happens is that many students get
lost with all the choice these
possibilities and they forget to make a
choice so therefore you have to choose
your preferences it’s like imagine
yourself there’s an ice cream truck at
the corner of your street and you go
there and find out that they have 20 or
50 new flavors of ice cream are you
going to try them all at once
no because well first of all you know
your stomach won’t take it second the
ice cream truck is down the street so
you can go anytime you want to taste
another one well for MOOCs is the same
thing only there there are not only 20
or 50 flavors there are thousands of
flavors of knowledge so the more curious
you are the more you will be tempted to
enroll to all of these courses but don’t
forget these courses take some time to
study are you sure you will have the
time for studying all that so when
you’re enrolling MOOCs first thing take
your agenda look at how much time you
have maybe start with one MOOC the one
you prefer the most and if you see that
you have more time you can enroll to
another one the ice cream truck was down
the street your MOOC is down the hall
also in terms of autonomy you know you
can study wherever you want so still
pick a place where you feel the most
concentrated and also comfortable but
maybe don’t be too comfortable the
second need is the one of competence
which means that when you want to pursue
something we need to feel competent at
the task
and MOOCs help us there as well as they
offer us courses that are at different
levels of difficulties so how to use
that well check the prerequisites of the
course before you enroll and also the
courses are provided in many languages
so try to choose a course that is in the
language that you in which you are the
most comfortable MOOCs provide you also
many times with subtitles that can help
you follow the course if it’s not your
mother tongue but studies have showed
that the more the course is technical
the more it’s complicated to follow the
course imagine for instance you’re an
english-speaking student and you want to
follow a class on quantum physics but
you’re a big fan of edit PF and you
think okay cool I’m going to follow a
quantum physics class in French and then
you end up having to watch this in
French with subtitles not that easy
right so watch out for your own
competences before you enroll to the
course also try to fill in the
assignments and the quizzes that are
provided even if you don’t want the
certificate it just helps you to get
keep track with your knowledge and it
gives you a feeling of engagement to the
course last but not least the feeling of
relatedness which means that to feel
motivated to engage in the in an
activity we need to feel related to
others to belong in a group and not only
this factor is one of the most important
in motivation it is also what makes
MOOCs more special because it’s one of
the first if not only online courses
that provide you with so many tools to
connect with others others as other
learners but also with the teaching
staff so you have like forums and Google
Hangouts and and more other tools that
will help you to be in contact with them
so try to stay connected but you can
also create your own community of
learners
so why not propose to your colleagues to
follow a course on data mining provided
by MIT during lunch time or challenge
your parents-in-law
to follow a course on political
science from university actually do well
and you can also take your partner to a
big adventure and you can learn how to
build a photovoltaic system for your own
house if you follow the course on solar
energy provided by University of Delft
so I hope that with these tips you will
want to join me and 58 million other
learners that are already out there to
join the MOOC experience just keep in
mind choose your preferences take into
consideration the competences you have
and keep in touch stay connected allow
me to finish with a quote of Benjamin
Franklin who once said we are all born
ignorant but one most must work hard to
remain stupid I don’t know if that was
true back in the 18th century when he
said it but I sure know that with MOOCs
today there’s no excuses left because
knowledge is at your fingertips
you
today I want to take you to a great
adventure some of you might be looking
at my title and wonder how a concept as
close as your fingertips is related to
adventure let me answer that question by
tell you a short story about my three
biggest adventures the first one started
when I was 17 I was coming from a little
village in Lebanon and I travelled to
discover new food new culture new people
for that adventure I had to go to
Belgium which means I traveled 4,000
kilometers my next adventure started a
year later where I travelled to discover
many topics as psychoanalysis or
neuropsychology and statistics for that
adventure I had to travel a hundred
kilometres as I was going to the
University at addictive a few years
later I got to experience my third and
biggest adventure where I travelled to
discover concepts of law taught by
Harvard University or philosophy from
Edinburgh and how to do big data
analysis from Hong Kong Polytechnic
University or even jazz improvisation
techniques from Berklee College of Music
do you know how many kilometers I had to
travel for that adventures to happen yes
three kilometers
right in my living room it sounds like
science fiction right well it kind of is
only today we call it MOOCs massive open
online courses
what are MOOCs MOOCs are courses
provided by universities all over the
world they are presented as videos
recorded by professors at their
universities these videos are followed
by quizzes and assignments that you
and fill in to obtain grades if you have
enough grades you can even purchase a
certificate MOOCs have had so much
success that hundreds of universities
around the world have followed the
experience reaching today to around
seven hundred universities and to an
offer of more than six thousand eight
hundred and fifty courses you to that
popularity MOOCs have been qualified as
the revolution of online learning
therefore many researchers in
educational sciences as myself started
to take a look at least look MOOCs to
try to understand how they work I was
more specifically intrigued by one
finding which is that many learners
still experience difficulty studying
these courses so I wondered are MOOCs
really that great and if they are how
come are we experiencing so many
difficulties in order to answer these
questions I base myself on theories of
motivation why because motivation is
acknowledged to be one of the biggest
predictors of our performances in
learning there are many theories of
motivation but one of the most popular
ones is the one of DC and Ryan which is
called self-determination theory
according to this theory we all have
three basic and universal needs and it
is only when these needs are satisfied
that we can actually have a better
performance if we take a look at MOOCs
we understand why they are so popular
because actually they help us with their
characteristic and their tools to fill
in these needs let’s take a look
together at the needs and how MOOCs help
us to fulfill them the first one is the
need of autonomy so the need of autonomy
means that we need a behavior to come
sum of preferences and no desires in
August in order to have a better
performance and MOOCs are great in that
way because they offer us the choice to
for the place where you want to learn or
when you want to learn
and more specifically what you want to
learn as you can choose whatever course
you want but even better you don’t even
have to follow the whole course you can
choose a chapter of the course that you
need and just study that you can even
get a certificate which is called badge
that certifies your success on that
particular chapter but how come students
are still experiencing difficulties is
because they don’t really know how to
use these tools so in terms of autonomy
what happens is that many students get
lost with all the choice these
possibilities and they forget to make a
choice so therefore you have to choose
your preferences it’s like imagine
yourself there’s an ice cream truck at
the corner of your street and you go
there and find out that they have 20 or
50 new flavors of ice cream are you
going to try them all at once
no because well first of all you know
your stomach won’t take it second the
ice cream truck is down the street so
you can go anytime you want to taste
another one well for MOOCs is the same
thing only there there are not only 20
or 50 flavors there are thousands of
flavors of knowledge so the more curious
you are the more you will be tempted to
enroll to all of these courses but don’t
forget these courses take some time to
study are you sure you will have the
time for studying all that so when
you’re enrolling MOOCs first thing take
your agenda look at how much time you
have maybe start with one MOOC the one
you prefer the most and if you see that
you have more time you can enroll to
another one the ice cream truck was down
the street your MOOC is down the hall
also in terms of autonomy you know you
can study wherever you want so still
pick a place where you feel the most
concentrated and also comfortable but
maybe don’t be too comfortable the
second need is the one of competence
which means that when you want to pursue
something we need to feel competent at
the task
and MOOCs help us there as well as they
offer us courses that are at different
levels of difficulties so how to use
that well check the prerequisites of the
course before you enroll and also the
courses are provided in many languages
so try to choose a course that is in the
language that you in which you are the
most comfortable MOOCs provide you also
many times with subtitles that can help
you follow the course if it’s not your
mother tongue but studies have showed
that the more the course is technical
the more it’s complicated to follow the
course imagine for instance you’re an
english-speaking student and you want to
follow a class on quantum physics but
you’re a big fan of edit PF and you
think okay cool I’m going to follow a
quantum physics class in French and then
you end up having to watch this in
French with subtitles not that easy
right so watch out for your own
competences before you enroll to the
course also try to fill in the
assignments and the quizzes that are
provided even if you don’t want the
certificate it just helps you to get
keep track with your knowledge and it
gives you a feeling of engagement to the
course last but not least the feeling of
relatedness which means that to feel
motivated to engage in the in an
activity we need to feel related to
others to belong in a group and not only
this factor is one of the most important
in motivation it is also what makes
MOOCs more special because it’s one of
the first if not only online courses
that provide you with so many tools to
connect with others others as other
learners but also with the teaching
staff so you have like forums and Google
Hangouts and and more other tools that
will help you to be in contact with them
so try to stay connected but you can
also create your own community of
learners
so why not propose to your colleagues to
follow a course on data mining provided
by MIT during lunch time or challenge
your parents-in-law
to follow a course on political
science from university actually do well
and you can also take your partner to a
big adventure and you can learn how to
build a photovoltaic system for your own
house if you follow the course on solar
energy provided by University of Delft
so I hope that with these tips you will
want to join me and 58 million other
learners that are already out there to
join the MOOC experience just keep in
mind choose your preferences take into
consideration the competences you have
and keep in touch stay connected allow
me to finish with a quote of Benjamin
Franklin who once said we are all born
ignorant but one most must work hard to
remain stupid I don’t know if that was
true back in the 18th century when he
said it but I sure know that with MOOCs
today there’s no excuses left because
knowledge is at your fingertips
you
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