If you’re unfamiliar, MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. It’s a free online collaborative course that large numbers of people can sign up for. It’s kind of like World of Warcraft for education, only it’s free and you replace killing with learning (I recommend a proper explanation from the guy who helped coin the term.). They’ve been a buzzword for Higher Ed lately, with top tier schools offering online courses to the masses for free. Being a relatively new idea, they’re still finding the their place. At the same time, they’re getting a lot of attention as a disruption for higher education.
That’s all fine and good. What can they do for me?
About four minutes into the one-hour #etmooc live session, I lost faith in MOOCs. I felt like I was in an enormous virtual lecture hall, only with the added disadvantage of being able to see and hear everyone’s thoughts. The facilitator talked in one window, while the chat window scrolled like a vertical Dow Jones ticker, and several dozen people spit stream of consciousness onto a blank slide (admittedly, that part was pretty cool…like a tag cloud, with a soul). So, like one does in a class that they feel completely un-engaged in, I started spacing out.
As I checked twitter for the eleventh time, I overheard some discussion of the terms “digital identity” and “digital citizen.” While I didn’t have a good answer for the definition of “digital identity,” I was concerned about mine. I started thinking about how I recently combined my blog–which I hadn’t updated in months–with my website–which I hadn’t updated in months–and how I still hadn’t really done much with that. I thought about how there were hundreds of people in this class and how I wished I could see them and interact with them. First, however, I wanted to gripe about how disappointed I was with this experience thus far.
Hold on…
I had my own goals for the class. I’m writing a blog post for the first time in months. I’m reading some tutorials to make my introductory video. I’ve got a built-in community of like-minded folks who came to this class looking to share. Most importantly, I had something to write about for the first time in months.
Suddenly the MOOC fell exactly in line with my core beliefs of what–at it’s best–higher education does: empower learners to pursue and achieve both their personal and career goals by building knowledge. While content specific, MOOCs leave the standards for achieving the class objective flexible open-ended. College is by no means for everyone. Access to knowledge, however, should be. MOOCs not only bring like minded people together (like the internet has done since practically day one), they bring them together with the purpose of cultivating their shared passion.
Well, heck. I can get on board with that. Now I just need to work on my introduction.
Note: I wrote this post after the first chat session over a week ago. A follow-up is coming, but I really need this post to work off of…so I’m posting it late.