A MOOC (massive open online course) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. MOOCs are a recent development in distance education and have now become a surging trend in higher education. These classes are aimed at expanding a university's reach from thousands of tuition-paying students who live in town, to millions of students around the world. In addition to traditional course materials, MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support interactions between students and professors. MOOCs can encourage communication among participants who bring a variety of viewpoints, knowledge, and skills to the course; inspire people to "try on" subjects that they wouldn't otherwise pursue or even try on education itself; provide multiple ways to engage with course material, encouraging multimodal (多模式的) learning that can address the needs of learners with a variety of learning styles; and inspire better teaching and use of technologies for face-to-face courses.
近年来,随着互联网技术的发展,我国的数字化教育资源建设取得了巨大的成就。很多高校建立了自己的数字化学习平台,数字化教学在教育中发挥着越来越大的作用。和传统教学方式相比,数字化教学方式有很大的优势。一方面,数字化教学使教学资源得以全球共享;另一方面,它拓展了学习者的学习时间和空间,人们可以随时随地通过互联网进入数字化的虚拟学校学习。这使得人类从接受一次性教育走向终身学习成为可能。