Lisa Lane is among the many talented people I am seeing at work behind #etmooc. Wanted to note her musings regarding the design of etmooc, from her blog post in early December. More than musings, actually, since much of the thinking you’ll see in the actual structure of the MOOC.
Lisa also references Alan Levine’s post about initial design and structure considerations; Alan is another of the early “conspirators” behind etmooc.
Both posts strike me as nicely arguing for, and resolving, a delicate balance between structure and no-structure in a “course” (or event…whatever you want to really call it) designed for self-directed/self-motivated learners to connect with each other and to learn.
I see etmooc and similar organized activities as great experiments. Big prototypes, really. And it’s important to be able to point back to some of the original thinking and decision making that went into the design. Because very soon (Jan. 13 start) there will be 1000 people banging away at the prototype.
