A HarvardXperiment

Unhangout in the Land of MOOCs

Much of the recent growth in online education has occurred at the expense of peer-to-peer collaboration. While many MOOCs are capable of delivering content to students around the world, their platforms do not do a good job of facilitating meaningful discussion amongst students, which is integral to the learning process. One tool that can help foster such peer-to-peer interaction is Unhangout, which was developed at the MIT Media Lab with support from the MacArthur Foundation and designed to run large scale discussion online. Unhangout offers a platform for hundreds of participants to take part in the same virtual event while retaining the intimacy of small group discussion.

At its essence, Unhangout is a virtual lobby that is built around Google Hangouts. Participants go to a webpage where they can chat with other participants while an introductory video (live or recorded) is played to all participants. Participants then join a Google Hangout with a up to nine others where they can discuss the topics at hand with more depth. After some time, participants go back to the lobby where any number of participants can deliver a live wrap, offering participants the opportunity to gain insight into what happened in the other Hangouts. The Unhangout team has experimented with the platform in many different types of online events, including online learning (see MIT’s Learning Creative Learning course), and this past week worked with a team at HarvardX to bring Unhangout to one of their MOOCs

On Thursday August 14, Unhangout hosted an event for students enrolled in edX’s GSE2x: Leaders of Learning. Timed to occur at the end of the six-week course, students were invited to take part in an Unhangout and discuss their reflections from the course with other students. In the days leading to the event, the Unhangout team trained the HarvardX team on Unhangout so that the event was almost entirely run by HarvardX staff.

By 10AM Eastern time on the day of the event, 140 students from the course had shown up to listen to a recorded introduction from Harvard Professor Richard Elmore. He spoke for a few minutes about his reflections on the course and introduced a discussion prompt: how did students ideas of learning change in the course and how does this impact their future work? Nearly 120 students joined breakout sessions and began 30 minute long discussions with eight other students and a facilitator (either a member of the Unhangout team or GSE2x team). After brief introductions, students began discussing the prompt and diving into conversations with classmates who, up until that point, they had very little contact with.

During the breakout sessions, facilitators took notes on a Google doc, highlighting themes and noteworthy comments from the discussions. Professor Elmore was able to read these in real-time and compile his notes for the live wrap-up. After 30 minutes, all students went back to the lobby where Professor Elmore spoke via Hangouts-on-Air, highlighting specific points addressed in a number of breakout rooms.

In a survey (n=41) given to to GSE2x students afterwards, 95% responded that they would recommend a similar style event. Many students valued the opportunity to work collaboratively with other participants and share ideas in a more intimate manner. Says on student:

“There were not many collaborative aspects to this course. It was thought-provoking to actually interact with other participants and exchange thoughts. Weekly sessions like this one would have enhanced the whole course.”

Another student wrote that:

“It was very enriching talking face to face with learners from different parts of the world and [realize] that we share the same expectations, dreams, fears, problems, challenges, interests and so on.”

Feedback from HarvardX staff and the course participants indicates that the next step for Unhangout is to better integrate advice and protocols into the Unhangout experience. A number of simple questions were answered by facilitators many times, which essentially turned the chat function into a help desk. These included logistical questions about Unhangout (when the rooms become unlocked, what sync means, etc) and reminders on protocol (mute yourself when not talking, use headphones, plug in your computer, be in a quiet space with good connectivity), as well as technical issues experienced by a few users and a number of questions about Google Hangouts (how to unmute, etc).

Playing our Intro video at the beginning of the Unhangout may better structure the idle time that some participants mentioned, as well as better orient everybody to the platform. Additionally, it would be good to have some visual reminder (either as part of the video or a pop up when the breakout rooms open) that restate the most common questions and essential tips.

A final student wrote:

“Interacting in a purely digital, out-of-synch environment always feels somewhat distant and impersonal — seeing and hearing actual people in all their diversity reminded me of the enormous potential and the resources which this diversity brought to the course.”

Ultimately, online education stands to serve as a transformative tool only to the extent it is able to leverage the ‘enormous potential’ that a diverse community of learners can offer. As companies like edX look to imbue their courses with more opportunities for peer-to-peer interaction, Unhangout may serve as a viable component of many MOOCs to come.

Originally published at the Unhangout blog on August 20, 2014