Building startup Europe, one MOOC at a time. MOOCs and OERs for web talent: efficacy, acknowledgemen Members : OER15

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Tue, Apr 14 2015, 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Authors: Laia Canals, Yishay Mor, Allison Littlejohn, Thomas Staubitz, Davinia Hernández-Leo, Stylianos Mystakidis, Carlos Alario-Hoyos, Mar Pérez-Sanagustín, Dawn Alderson, and Gunnar Rasch

Room: Dora Stoutzker Hall (Theatre) Main Building

Theme: Open Education Practice (OEP) and Policy

Type: Panel

Description

The EC has highlighted the potential of web and mobile startups to boost economic growth and well-being in Europe. Yet this potential is threatened by a predicted shortage of over a million skilled workers.

The MOOCS for web talent network was initiated by the EC’s Startup Europe initiative to address this challenge.

During 2014, the network has run webinars, conducted desk research and a survey of employers, employees and MOOC providers, connected a workshop at EC TEL 2014, and a stakeholder meeting adjacent to Slush in Helsinki.

The aim of this hybrid open event is to share the findings of our work and open up the network to a wider community.

Web and mobile technology is developing at an accelerating pace. To keep up with these changes, workers and potential workers from the ed tech ecosystem need to constantly update their skills. MOOCs offer a valuable mechanism for addressing this challenge.

MOOCs are an important means to address the shortage in web talent – but as part of an ecosystem which includes free and paid courses, self-paced learning resources, learning communities (e.g. open source communities), and formal education providers.

In order to create sustainable and effective MOOCs for web talent, which address the real needs of web and mobile entrepreneurs, industry, educational providers and MOOC platforms need to collaborate in dynamic and agile partnerships.

Web entrepreneurs and their current and potential employees need hands-on learning experiences, grounded in real-life problems – not abstract, passive learning experiences. In order to provide such experiences, providers need to work closely with eLearning pedagogy experts and industry partners. However, MOOCs using professional software development environments to provide hands-on experience to participants have encountered various challenges mainly owing to the varied levels of digital literacy among participants.

Employers (and potential employees) need mechanisms for validating the quality of MOOCs and other learning opportunities, and verifying the knowledge of participants. This could be provided by formal credit systems (e.g. ECTS), but also by portfolios and community credits (e.g. stackoverflow badges).

We will set up an online discussion space prior to the conference, where we will share the outputs from the networks’ activities so far. We will facilitate and curate an online discussion around the emerging themes. At the OER15, we will conduct a live panel which would draw on and summarise the online discussion. This panel will be attended in person by several contributors and virtually by others, and will also be webcast for remote participants and recorded for use as an OER.

References

(2014). First Interim Report. Report on Web Skills Survey for the project Fostering Web Talent in Europe by encouraging the use of MOOCs focused on web skills.

Milligan, C., & Littlejohn, A. (2014). Supporting professional learning in a massive open online course. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 15(5).

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