This looks like the first stage in our evaluation process, Helen, and gives the OLDSMOOC team some good starting points for our own reflection.
The positive points you mention in relation to Sheila’s prototyping and the link you built up with Penny were among the highlights of the MOOC for me. That kind of organising principle being introduced into a potentially chaotic discussion is very important for this kind of course. And I very much enjoyed your and Penny’s independent narrative reflections.
You also rightly ask the pertinent question of the extent to which the course designers practice what they preach – and on that issue I’ve been wondering if we really do have something to learn from your review – as Yishay has suggested to the team. In fact, I think some of the negative points you mention confirm the principles we preached, even though our practice of them fell short of ideal – at least for me that was true.
Two of the issues you raise will stay with me – (1) how structured should it be (an issue raised by other participants as well), and (2) how best to assist participants in organising groups.
(1) For the first, I think I’m quite happy to offer structure in case it’s of use, including estimating the minimum time a participant might spend on it. We know very well that students do not always do what is suggested, and that is their prerogative to decide. But they cannot decide if we have not suggested and designed it. So I would argue that it is the learning designer’s responsibility to design what they think is the optimal sequence of activities to support the achievement of the intended learning outcome. And that means structure. The timings I agree were minimalist, and to do the tasks properly would require more time. Perhaps it would be better to suggest the minimalist time (enough time to get a sense of what the task is, what use it might be, and cursory understanding of it), and the optimal time (the time needed to achieve the learning outcome in full)?
(2) We did try various ways of organising groups – with Sheila’s upgrading of Cloudworks maybe that would work better. We do have to think about promoting the forming of groups – crucial for the overall success of MOOCs. I’m not sure what you learn from the experience you and Penny had – that seemed extremely fortuitous!
So thank you very much for the review, which will serve our iterative learning design process very well!
Thank you for such a rich overview of the course. Your narrative provides a good framework of thinking about the MOOC and not only the ways of thinking about what we have been doing but taking it forward.
Hi Helen, OLDS MOOC buddy. Without the “social glue” of twitter I would have found it difficult to make it through the OLDS MOOC. Sharing tips, jokes, weather forecasts, fine dining ideas, badge applications, verification requests, links and images was so much part of my learning experience. Once people get the hang of twitter (it took me some time), this form of microblogging isn’t time consuming yet is such a powerful way of keeping the conversation going in a MOOC.
Thanks for being part of my learning journey, I look forward to continuing our connection into the future.