You don’t mention “humanizing the course” as one of the reasons we use video. In online education there is often an engagement challenge. 1 — short videos are more engaging than many alternatives, fast moving ones (ie MRUniversity) are engaging and fun 2- by introducing the facilitator/professor the course becomes real. They are able to use their voice to emphasize, share personal experience….humanize the class. How much video and how much personalization needs to occur is based on many things — most importantly is this a MOOC or a traditional online course? In a MOOC you hope people will start (and staying is even better.) How will you draw them in without a person, a face, a video? Much that goes on after is peer to peer, very different than a traditional online for-credit course which continues to be instructor-led (though hopefully there is peer to peer there as well.) In smaller for-credit courses video is still important. That’s what engages. In those courses the video used can have more variety. You can mix instructor-led, student video (ie Flipgrid) and some subject matter video or open resource. It is much more flexible than a MOOC in that way.

Traditional Connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) started by George Seimens and Stephen Downes in 2008 did not have video other than the live video conferencing we used. Whatever we could get for free worked. These xMOOCs, or MOOCs as entertainment, are full productions. I’m not sure why we went that route, except that it probably appeals to a bigger market. cMOOCs were messy learning, good learning that required work. xMOOCs are more passive entertainment, easier to injest and it seems that’s the direction we’ve gone with most MOOCs.