Abstract
This paper details the experiences of a group of Timorese English language teachers from Lorosa’e English Language Institute (LELI) in Dili, Timor-Leste, who participated in a professional development MOOC entitled Teaching for Success: Lessons and Teaching between March and April 2017. Drawing on the pedagogical principles of blended learning; participants engaged with online course content, and once a week met as a study group to view some video content together and discuss issues arising from it. The authors draw on participant observation, individual and focus group interviews and post-course author reflections to outline the benefits and challenges of doing blended MOOCs in Dili, and propose that they can provide local English language teachers opportunities for subject area knowledge building, language literacy development and more general lifelong learning.
Highlights
This paper is part of a participatory action research project investigating the potential for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Education Resources (OER) to provide low-cost, quality learning experiences for learners in Timor-Leste
The authors identified a dearth of research into the lived experience of MOOC participants from countries of the global South and this paper aims to make a contribution to this field
Five major benefits and four challenges around facilitating MOOCs for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in Timor-Leste were identified in the data: Benefit 1: Access to quality learning resources
Summary
This paper is part of a participatory action research project investigating the potential for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Education Resources (OER) to provide low-cost, quality learning experiences for learners in Timor-Leste. Key barriers to uptake in countries of the global South include limited access to the internet and the requisite information and communication technologies (ICTs), as well as low participant literacies (Liyanagunawardena, Williams, & Adams, 2013). Despite these limitations, recent reports conclude that MOOCs can provide scalar opportunities for higher education in the global South (Laurillard & Kennedy, 2017), and help progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 - quality education (McGreal, 2017).
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