The MOOC is titled Making Sense of Data. It is designed to teach the use of Google’s Fusion Tables for data analysis and collaboration. The target audience is people that analyze data on a regular basis such as teachers, journalists and entrepreneurs; though engineers might also benefit from learning the Fusion Table tool.
The course is available on Open edX. It will focus on pattern recognition, data processing and chart creation; however, students don’t need to have previous statistics knowledge in order to take or benefit from the course.
The content will consist of videos, text, projects and small activities. It will also introduce new participation tools like hangouts, live chats and direct feedback. This leads me to believe that the course may take advantage of Oppia, the brainchild of a collection of Google employees.
Though not an actual Google product, Oppia would not exist if not for Google’s innovative management structure. Oppia is an interactive online learning tool which encourages students to participate in ways other than video and reading. Oppia intends to imitate the one-on-one interactions of a classroom using interactive dialogue.
For instance, when students ask questions they are not just asking their teacher, who may be inundated with thousands of questions from MOOC students. Instead, Oppia will see if a similar question was asked and answered before, perhaps by another instructor. In essence, the student is accessing every teacher using the software. Furthermore, a teacher only has to answer a question once. This way teachers can focus on the tough questions posed by the class as opposed to continuously answering “Is this going to be on the final?”