MOOCs, crowdsourcing and social networks

Abstract

Social media took the world by storm and transformed the society and its multiple dimensions in more than one way. The extent of the shock waves that this phenomenon inevitably influenced the way people interacted with the web and with each other, as well as with all web applications and services provided online. E-learning evolved as it embraced the new Web 2.0 technologies in an attempt to enhance the delivery but at the same time to take full advantage as in the past of the latest cutting-edge technologies that were available. It has been argued in the previous chapter that this technological shift was no standard evolution but a major unconventional and progressive e-learning revolution that literally turned the tables around. In this chapter the full impact of this considerable technological contribution to the pedagogical and functional dynamics of e-learning will be brought into perspective as innovative techniques transpired from the evolution of Web 2.0 technologies that slowly but surely got integrated within online learning systems. These include MOOCs or Massive Online Open Courses, Crowdsourcing techniques, and Social Networks. The beauty about these technologies that resulted out of the latest technological evolution addressed particular e-learning concerns as e-learning had been emanating from the integration of a variety of incongruous emerging technologies that at the time assisted in improving the services provided by such systems. In the following sections the main e-learning issues will be discussed together with how emerging technologies can start addressing them.