Stephen Downes

The lessons learned at Vanderbilt are consistent with lessons learned in our own MOOCs and in other MOOCs offered elsewhere. The lessons include, briefly:

• Teaching online is a team effort.
• There's more to MOOCs than lecture videos.
• Open content is our friend
• The cognitive diversity seen in MOOCs is far greater than in closed courses
• MOOC students are well-motivated students
• Cognitive Diversity + Intrinsic Motivations = Crowdsourcing Success
• MOOC students can be producers as well as consumers of information
• Accommodating students on different time tables can be challenging
• Instructor presence is important, even in a MOOC

Good stuff; good article.