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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Bridging the Technology Divide in the COVID-19 Era: Using Virtual Outreach to Expose Middle and High School Students to Imaging Technology
Published on: September 28, 2022
What we learned from creating one of the world's most popular MOOCs
Barbara A Oakley1, Terrence J Sejnowski1,2,3
11School of Engineering, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309 USA.
Abstract:
Learning How to Learn (LHTL) is currently one of the world's most popular massive open online course (MOOC), with nearly 2.5 million registered learners in its first 4 years. Here, we "reverse engineer" the design of the course's videos to show how creative application of well-known principles of multimedia learning in an MOOC context appear to have fueled the course's popularity. Gaps in knowledge of multimedia learning are also noted. There have been some 50 years of experience researching effective classroom teaching, but less there have been only 5 years since MOOCs became widespread. The success of LHTL may provide further insight into the importance of the principles of multimedia learning, and how those principles might be practically implemented to improve MOOC making and the general design of instructional videos.
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