Episode 003 - Mike Sharples

In this episode, we feature an interview with Mike Sharples of the Open University in the United Kingdom. The Open University is a public research university committed to increasing access to college through open admissions and online learning. It’s been around for more than 40 years, and it currently has more than 250,000 enrolled students from the UK and beyond. The Open University also runs FutureLearn, a venture that offers free online courses to the world. Not only does Mike Sharples hold a chair in educational technology at the Open University, but he is also the Academic Lead at FutureLearn. In his interview, he draws on that experience to describe the kind of social, collaborative learning that can happen online when you have hundreds or even thousands of learners. Sharples is interviewed by Gayathri Narasimham, Associate Director at the Vanderbilt Institute for Digital Learning, also known as VIDL. VIDL is, among many other things, Vanderbilt’s production shop for massive open online courses (MOOCs), which is why Gayathri was interested in talking with Mike Sharples about his experience designing and assessing MOOCs. More on Mike Sharples: • Open University faculty profile: http://www.open.ac.uk/people/ms8679 • Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharplm • FutureLearn: https://www.futurelearn.com/