Throughout my time navigating and learning from fellow #etmooc ‘ers, I am also participating in a sub-group of fellow students in the University of Massachusetts’s Instructional Design (M.Ed) program. We study, make, revise and design educational tools, courses and materials for all types of education and business training situations.

Tonight our group had our first meeting on a Google hangout to hash out some strategies, and share stories about what we are all experiencing in the EdTech Mooc. It would seem, right off the bat, that we all realize education may truly be starting to catch-up with tech tools and devices that we all use regularly. We also expressed interest in ways that we can document our own experiences in this MOOC, and ways that we can share those experiences with other instructional designers. Our goal with this would be to create a resource for instructional designers to utilize, and find ways to integrate connected learning into their design process.

Another interesting part of our conversation tonight, that I found a great way to think about the nature of MOOCs, was the discussion of MOOCs being a passing fad. I do believe that the idea of the MOOC is enjoying its buzzword limelight, but I believe it is a similar limelight as the “Social Networking” buzz-term that Friendster and MySpace enjoyed. Just as Friendster was a pre-courser to MySpace, and MySpace to Facebook, MOOCs in their current forms, I believe, are more like rapid prototypes to more refined and honed educational experiences. After all, this is the web, and things get created, improved upon and are subject to (sometimes rapid) evolution. The products and services on the web that tend to stick around, are ones that listen to it’s users, and get intimate with their life.

Since MOOCs are driven by its learners, it will be the learners who drive the evolution of the learning space. Even as Apple, Google and Samsung make new phones, tablets and devices, the learners are the ones who decide what tool or device is best for them and their learning. I can see a new marketing of MOOC tools possibly opening up, or better yet, existing social tools such as Google+ , Twitter and Facebook creating spaces for helping us all navigate (not just aggregate) the massive amount of content that MOOCs can generate.