With the majority of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) developed within and aimed at the global north (ICDE 2013), their place within the development agenda and the opportunities they offer within low and middle income countries has been the subject of much discussion (Trucano 2013). For the TESS-India project (TESS-India 2015a), working on teacher education in India at a time when Indian MOOCs are becoming increasingly common (Perris 2014), launching a professional development MOOC aimed at Indian teacher educators provided an opportunity to assess the extent to which this access mechanism enables positive engagement. The TESS-India MOOC, ‘Enhancing Teacher Education through OER’, aimed to support teacher educators (particularly within the Indian context) to access and use OER to “close the gap between policy and practice in classroom teaching and learning” (TESS-India 2015b). Based on recommendations from a platform usability study with a sample of the target audience (TESS-India 2014), the pilot iteration of the TESS-India MOOC ran as an ‘open boundary’ course (Czerniewicz et al 2014), meaning that, in addition to the online course environment, regular face-to-face sessions were offered to selected participants in India. This alternative approach allowed these participants a more supported means of engagement in the MOOC, helping overcome some potential challenges in participating and completing the course. It also generated some additional outcomes of particular interest, including increasing participants’ perceived digital literacy and generating considerable buy-in from Indian state governments and teacher education institutions for online methods of teacher education and training. This presentation will explore some of these, whilst also considering the extent to which the ‘open-boundary’ nature moved the participant experience away from that of an online course towards a more traditional face-to-face learning approach taught with online materials, and will therefore seek to understand the implications of taking this hybrid approach.
References
Czerniewicz, L, Deacon, A, Small, J & Walji, S. (2014). ‘Developing world MOOCs: A curriculum view of the MOOC landscape’. JOGLTEP, Special Issue on MOOCs, 2014 2(3), 122-139 [online] Available at: http://joglep.com/files/7614/0622/4917/2._Developing_world_MOOCs.pdf [Accessed 16/11/2015]
International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) (2013) World Bank EduTech: MOOCs and developing countries [online]. Available at: http://www.icde.org/en/icde_news/news_archive/2013/2013_part_2/World+Bank+EduTech%3A+MOOCs+and+developing+countries.b7C_wJLG2t.ips [Accessed: 02/09/2015]
Perris, K (2014) ‘MOOC on MOOCs? A novel yet pragmatic approach’ University World News [online]. Available at: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140903154113518 [Accessed: 02/09/2015]
TESS-India (2014) MOOC Technical Usability Testing Report. TESS-India: Milton Keynes, UK
TESS-India (2015a) TESS-India website [online] http://www.tess-india.edu.in/ [last viewed 16th November 2015]
Trucano, M (2013) ‘More about MOOCs and Developing Countries.’ EduTech: A World Bank Blog On ICT Use in Education [online]. Available at: http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/moocs-developing-countries. [Accessed: 03/09/2015]
