Introduction
It's a weekday night in the suburbs. After putting in a good nine-hour shift, I drive have crazed around the beltway to take o nth evening shift at home. After getting some noddles on the stove with its complementary sauce, ground beef, and garlic bread in heir perspective pans and cooking on the stove: I can finally devote some time to the kid's homework.
Homework in my house isn't always easy. Now that the kids are getting older, their assignments have gotten more difficult and, let's face it, it has been a long time ago since I have been behind a textbook or used some of the skills that my child needs the expertise to complete the assignment. So, since the year is 2018, I either call the school's homework line or get a YouTube video which breaks down the assignment so my kids can understand it.
Most of the time, I can get a "hit" by selecting a few choice keywords into the search bar and the result set hows a couple of videos to answer the question. But, what if the answer you are looking for didn't have a short, concise, YouTube video to look at? Everyone has a skill that, if taught to others, could save them time, help learn a math problem or gain insight into someone else's world.That is what I am talking about on today's blog. The ability for anyone, at any place, at any time to create an online course, in any language. Also, the tool is open source, so you do not have to worry about license fees everytime you develop a course.
What is the Google Online Course Builder?
The Google Online Course builder is a set of capabilities designed to take your knowledge (through a set of instructions) and pass them to whoever watches it. The Course Builder has been online at Google since 2014. The output from a course builder is called a Massive open online course (MOOC)
In technical terms, MOOC:"is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web.[1] In addition to traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions among students, professors and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent and widely researched development in distance education which were first introduced in 2006 and emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012"
What happens when you develop a MOOC course?
You can deploy it to sites like https://www.edx.org/, The Kahn Academy, and other places which contain lectures from some of the top universities in the world. All of them are "open source" from some of the top schools in the world. Using edx, you can even earn "verified" credit for learning courses on their site.
Where is the Google Online Course Builder?
Link: https://edu.google.com/openonline/
What is in a course-builder course?
According to Google, a Course Builder course includes:
- "Course content and delivery: The material that you formally convey to students. Formal content can be lessons recorded or written in advance. It can also be live question and answer sessions with course staff.
- Assessments and activities: Graded assessments with a fixed deadline to track student progress. You can also use ungraded assessments, called activities, to provide feedback and hints to students.
- Social interactions: An important component of an online course is the interactions among the students themselves and the interactions between students and the course staff (the instructors or teaching assistants).
- Administrative tasks: Of course, there are tasks such as registering students, setting up the course, tracking usage, and so on. "(2)
The Internet is a wonderful tool for sharing information. Much of it is filled with web pages, YouTube videos, and other content which has nothing to do with education. According to Wikipedia:"Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits."(3). It is a resource, which if managed properly, can make you a better person, earn you a good salary, and even save your life (or the life of someone else). That is why education should be free and transferred to anyone who wants to learn it. Using course builder is a way to transfer the knowledge into a tangiable leson, in which others can follow and learn.
If my kids couldn't look on the Internet to find answers to their homework, they would become frustrated and not learn the material. Each voice of a teacher which emanates through your speakers is from someone who has been where your child is now and wants them to overcome their fears and learn the information at hand. After watching a few math videos, my kids finished their homework and they were on their way to the next activity ... having dinner.
Conclusion
Also, take a look at the following video from the lead of Google's R&D to talk about the Open Online Education" process: https://youtu.be/luQfWSfb1s0
Bibliography
(1) https://edu.google.com/openonline/edukit/index.html
(2) https://edu.google.com/openonline/edukit/course-parts.html
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education
