A new competence-based approach for personalizing MOOCs in a mobile collaborative and networked environment

  1. António Teixeira 1
  2. José Mota 1
  3. Antonio García-Cabot 2
  4. Eva García-Lopéz 2
  5. Luis de-Marcos 2
  1. 1 Universidade Aberta
    info

    Universidade Aberta

    Lisboa, Portugal

    ROR https://ror.org/02rv3w387

  2. 2 Universidad de Alcalá
    info

    Universidad de Alcalá

    Alcalá de Henares, España

    ROR https://ror.org/04pmn0e78

Journal:
RIED: revista iberoamericana de educación a distancia

ISSN: 1138-2783

Year of publication: 2016

Issue Title: El aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras mediante tecnología móvil en el contexto de la EaD y combinada

Volume: 19

Issue: 1

Pages: 143-160

Type: Article

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More publications in: RIED: revista iberoamericana de educación a distancia

Abstract

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a disruptive new development in higher education which combines openness and scalability in a most powerful way. They have the potential to widen participation in higher education. Thus, they contribute to social inclusion, the dissemination of knowledge and pedagogical innovation and also the internationalization of higher education institutions. However, one of the critical elements for a massive open language learning experience to be successful is to empower learners and to facilitate networked learning experiences. In fact, MOOCs are designed for an undefined number of participants thus serving a high heterogeneity of profiles, with diverse learning styles and prior knowledge, and also contexts of participation and diversity of online platforms. Personalization can play a key role in this process. The iMOOC pedagogical model introduced the principle of diversity to MOOC design, allowing for a clear differentiation of learning paths and also virtual environments. In this article the authors present a proposal based on the iMOOC approach for a new framework for personalizing and adapting MOOCs designed in a collaborative, networked pedagogical approach by identifying each participant’s competence profile and prior knowledge as well as the respective mobile communication device used and to generate matching personalized learning. This paper also shows the results obtained in a laboratory environment after an experiment has been performed with a prototype of the framework. It can be observed that creating personalized learning paths is possible and the next step is to test this framework with real experimental groups.

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Funding information

Authors want to acknowledge the support received from Universidade Aberta and also the University of Lisbon. This research has been funded by the project “Framework motivacional utilizando gamificación y redes sociales en cursos masivos abiertos online” (TIN2014-54874-R), supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain.

Funders

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Data source: Dialnet