creating a small, private, online course (spoc) at emlyon business school: lessons learned

Creating a Small, Private, Online Course (SPOC) for Msc Students at EMLYON Business SchoolLessons learned

April 19, 2015

By Clément Levallois, Assist. Prof.

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Clement Levallois

Outline

1. Context: a new course at EMLYON Business School

2. Pedagogy of the course

3. Tools used

4. Feedback received

5. How it felt

6. Lessons learned

7. Next steps: towards a MOOC!

Clement Levallois

1. Context

- New course approved in May/June 2014, to be created during the summer for September 2014.

- Evolution of technologies at EMLYON (iCampus platform -> ???)

- New strategy (EMLYON encourages blended courses, MOOCs…)

- Personal history: a course I find fundamental for students!

=> Why not creating this course as a blended course from the start?

Clement Levallois

2. Pedagogy: one typical session

+ 2 x 25 minutes videos avail. one week before the class+ 1 online quizz with 3 free-form questions+ Links for further reading

• Work in groups on a case related to the topic of the week

OR tutorial on a softwareOR presentation by a speaker

online

In-class

Clement Levallois

2. Tools used

• Online platform: Canvas by Instructure (free)

• Video hosting: Youtube (unlisted videos)

• Slide hosting: Slideshare (free)

• Video editing: Lightworks (free)

• Video recording:– My personal mobile phone video capture (Samsung S2)

– A powerful laptop by EMLYON for video editing– Sound equipment I bought– My living room

Clement Levallois

Clement Levallois

Resulting video on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oplp6JL8d4Q

Clement Levallois

Video Recording (1 take = 45 min)

Audio Recording(simultaneous with video rec.)

Uploading (1h)

Video + Audio synch and editing(1 take = 2 hours)

Clement Levallois

How it looks for the students on www.canvas.instructure.com

Clement Levallois

Number of web pages clicked by the 45 students + observers(the course ended early December)

Completion rates for “open answer” quizzes (one per week).Red: missing assignmentYellow: late assignmentNote: the last quizz (on the right) was not mandatory.

Clement Levallois

4. Feedback from students

Clement Levallois

Clement Levallois

Some critical verbatims

“Interesting course overall, but I would have appreciated to learn more technical things, maybe instead of the general cases we worked on during the in-class sessions.”

“Les slides du cours de Clément Levallois étaient intéressantes et complètes. Cependant, vu qu'elles étaient fournies en amont, les 3h de cours paraissaient inutiles. Nous les avons passé à vaguement réfléchir et trouver des pseudo idées sur des thèmes à chaque fois différents, sans rien creuser et sans data ! »

“Very interesting course but i would have expect more technical works at the end.”

“The content of the online course is interesting but I really didn't like the in-class sessions. I would have preferred either just a MOOC or a real in-class lesson but the brainstorming seemed a loss of time to me.”

Clement Levallois

5. How it felt

Clement Levallois

• Doing the videos: like writing a textbook– It is dreadful but you do it just once and it makes life easier

for the next years

• Actual fun in the face to face sessions– Feels weird to walk in the classroom without a slide deck!

– No students dozing off, they tend to work more

– Rediscovery of a variety of in-class pedagogical activities, since the lecturing has already taken place

Clement Levallois

5. Lessons learned

Clement Levallois

On the pedagogy

1. Reintroducing a stronger role of the lecturer during in-class sessions-> tutorials, hands-on exercises, debrief on the videos…-> students appreciate not to be thrown directly and autonomously into applied cases, following an online lecture.

2. Shortening the in-class lectures-> Because the 1st edition of the course was actually too long (3h in class + online lectures > 5 ECTS).-> With a better designed in-class experience, the content to deliver will fit in a shorter session.

3. Keeping the online side pretty much as it is-> even if it is very tempting to transform the weekly “open answer” quizzes into MCQ, because they take so long to grade…

Clement Levallois

On the tools

1. Shifting to Screencast-o-Matic to record the videosBecause with a good webcam and a good mic, the quality should be as good as my home-made solution, and much less time intensive to edit.

2. Finding a better place to record videosI need better lighting! But I also need flexibility to book the place!

3. Shifting from Canvas to D2L, the new LMS for EMLYON

Which will be easy, it is just copy pasting the content.

Clement Levallois

5. Next steps: towards a MOOC

Clement Levallois

• Lessons learned from the SPOC can apply to MOOCs

• Plan for a course for PreMaster students (400+) and a MOOC in parallel for Sept 2015:

-> https://exploreyourdata.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/towards-a-mooc-creating-mobile-apps-for-entrepreneurs/

• ~ 75% online videos, ~ 25% conferences or in class tutorials

Clement Levallois

Plans to make video recording less time intensive:

-> using Screencast O’ Matichttp://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

-> in a dedicated studio at EMLYON

(see test video using this setup on the next slide)

Clement Levallois

Test on using Screencast-O-Matic: http://youtu.be/3m3ayFT_YVw

Clement Levallois

Thanks

• Contact: levallois@em-lyon.com

• Twitter: @seinecle

• Website: www.clementlevallois.net