MOOCs or Massive Online Open Courses are very news worthy at the moment. In fact 2012 has been described the year of the MOOC. MOOCs are great for mass education but they leave that bit of social interaction out because they are Massive. SOOCs or Social Open Online Courses are learning experiences that seek to put the social aspect of learning back into the interaction between peers learning together.
The SOOCs that can be accessed from this page are learning activities constructed using Google Course Builder and supported by Google + social media tools as a Free Learning Management system. We are using the Google products for the following:
Google Course Builder: A Python driven application running using the Google App Engine used to present and organise SOOC materials.
Google Documents: Used as a free Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Forms and Presentation suite. We are using these to be able to exchange work and collaborate both via Android tablets and more traditional PC and Laptop platforms.
Google+ Communities: Our main way of communicating is via the moderated Google+ Communities. We have two Google+ Communities associated with Cambridge Online Learning Community. One is intended for all members of CAMBOLC, the other is specifically for exchanges to do with the SOOCs. Both Google+ Communities are open to all CAMBOLC members!
Goole+ Hangouts: Used for video meetings between those in the SOOCs, as we are using Google Apps for Business this allows 15 active participants in the video meeting an any number of other watchers. The Hangout can be record to our YouTube channel where it can be accessed by all those in the SOOC.
YouTube: Hosting video content used in SOOCs and generally in CAMBOLC
We look forward to exploring this new frontier of learning online!