I’m about 2 ½ weeks in to the most puzzling class experience I would say I’ve ever had, the E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC from Coursera.com, aka #edcmooc. So what is a MOOC?
The short answer is that this fairly new acronym stands for Massive Online Open Course. To quote Wikipedia, another massive online phenomenon, it’s “an online course aiming at large-scale participation and open access via the web.” Anyone can sign up, there is no fee required or academic credit offered, and the course is designed to have massive numbers of students.
How massive is it? It’s so massive that…
…there are participants in just about every time zone on earth.
…the discussion forum has grown to thousands of posts, in hundreds of distinct threads.
…someone estimated there are 40,000 students enrolled in this MOOC. I have no idea where this number came from, but hey, why not.
This particular MOOC is very self-referential, with assigned readings, videos, and discussion forum topics about how we view technology, what technology means for learning, and even what the future might be for MOOCs themselves.
It’s been both fascinating and intensely frustrating. How exciting is it that I’m part of an experiment that is engaging tens of thousands of students in a cross-cultural, trans-national search for knowledge! I can add my voice to those of people from all over the US and the UK, as well as from Spain, Greece, Argentina, the Netherlands, and countless other places.
On the other hand, how can students have a meaningful discussion when there’s no class time, just a list of resources to read or view and an endless stream of postings in the online discussion forums? How can teachers guide the course to a meaningful objective when they don’t give lectures or seminars, they don’t actually meet any of their students, and there are just too many voices to have a substantive discussion?
I’m not convinced that MOOCs are all that effective now, but perhaps they will evolve enough to make a lasting contribution to the field of education someday. Or perhaps not. It’s too soon to tell.
Technology gives us the tools to do so many exciting things we’ve perhaps never thought of doing before. That doesn’t necessarily mean we should do them. But it does remind us to keep our eyes and ears open, because something big might come along, and we just might be part of it.
