From September 18 to 20, 2014, the Open University of China (OUC) held the Open Online Course Development and Operation Seminar and First Sino-Norwegian Senior Seminar on MOOC. 56 participants from 18 open universities and Radio and TV Universities (RTVUs), colleges/universities, education/training institutions, and education software companies nationwide attended the Seminar, with 52 of them successfully completing the seminar.
Vice President of the OUC Zhang Shaogang and Director of LATINA Laboratory at Oslo University College Professor Helge Hoivik jointly presented certificates to the trainees who completed the seminar.
The Seminar was designed to track the latest developments and trends in massive open online courses (MOOC) worldwide; draw on the experience of top international and domestic universities and educational institutions in the field of open online courses; accelerate the pace of MOOC construction in China; enhance the level of MOOC development and operation; and promote openness and sharing of quality education resources.
The contents of the seminar included: the latest international developments and trends in MOOC; MOOC theory and practice at the OUC; the development and benchmarking of MOOC in the field of vocational education (MOOC construction and operating experiences shared by Tsinghua University, Beijing University and other institutions); training on relevant MOOC theory and technology, online course construction logic and MOOC design and development.
This seminar is a continuation of the open online course training held in March and an extension of the open online course training set up in March 2014 by the Research and Development Centre for Digital Learning of the OUC, and Latina Lab, Oslo University College’s digital teaching development research lab. The training courses are taught according to a blended learning model, combining online learning with offline learning (O2O model). Member of the OUC Technology Committee of Research and Development Centre for Digital Learning, and Director of the LATINA Lab, Professor Helge Hoivik delivered a keynote speech on the latest international developments and trends in MOOC.
Wang Xiaoxiao from Tsinghua University, Feng Fei from Peking University, Ju Feng from Higher Education Press, Liu Bangxiang from GTZ/GIZ and Wang Li from the OUC Digital Learning Resource Centre introduced their exploration and experiences in MOOC construction and operation on behalf of xuetangX.com, Peking University MOOC team, icourse (http://www.icourses.cn/home/) and the OUC, respectively. These experts give lectures from an international perspective, closely combining the overall development strategy of the nation and education institutions with their local reality, playing a leading role in the construction and development of MOOCs nationwide. Their lectures were uniformly praised by the trainees at the Seminar.
A two-day training session for the design and development of open online courses was arranged as part of the Seminar. During the training session, participants were grouped and each group was equipped with an assistant to provide counseling and support. The students actively participated in the activities, and completed the selection of topics for the course, content design, resource material collection, video shooting, learning tasks and learning evaluation design. During the work sharing session, the students were filled with satisfaction and pride when they saw their carefully prepared curriculum resources and videos. They all said that their practical curriculum development abilities had been greatly improved by the training session.
This Seminar represents a successful exploration of the O2O blended training model. According to the cooperation framework agreed by the OUC Research and Development Centre for Digital Learning and LATINA Lab, the OUC will hold regular Sino-Norwegian seminars on digital learning to track the development of new technologies and enhance the relevant skills and professional abilities of staff engaged in distance education.
Professor Helge Hoivik delivering a keynote speech
At the training site
Zhang Shaogang and Professor Helge Hoivik presenting certificates to the trainees
You can download the Seminar Lecture from:
http://erc.ouchn.edu.cn/?action-viewnews-itemid-340
By Wang Lina, Wei Shunping, and Huang Pei, the OUC