Half an Hour: Education as Platform: The MOOC Experience and wha...: Presented to EdgeX2012 , Delhi, India, March 12, 2012. My name is Stephen Downes, I'm from Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. New Brunswick is...
Having just completed Dr. Curtis Bonk (U of Indiana)'s MOOC last week, I was very interested in Downes perspective. While the waves of readings and peer posts sweep over you (well, as many posts as 10% of the 4000 students in the MOOC can sweep), you wonder whether all of this will get some focus. For me, it never did. If education is a platform (as Downes has argued), then I was left on the edge. It was difficult for me to judge the MOOC by what it said it would do (that was never clear) and judge it by the experiences that I was having. I got my badge for the minimal participation that was required; I got a couple readings; but most of all, I got a glimpse of what a high-octane instructor looks like when he is performing. ("Is that your hyperactive instructor?" my wife would ask as she walked behind my screen and saw Bonk jumping up and down ("Women in Asia, jump up!")
But, tedious as Bonk could sometimes be -- not getting to the gist of our weekly 1 hour (stretching into 2 hours) live video performance, I had to admire the sheer energy the man expended on catching our attention. Sure he had his groupies from past courses to bounce off of (an aspect Downes notes in his critique of the attempts of the MOOC to create a group experience), but a lot of it was unvarnished Bonk. By the end, I not only had a question ("Am I that energetic? and is the hope for calmer instructors like me?"), I had answers ("Not at all" and "maybe there is a space online that is for me.")
I admired the live contact Bonk provided, and I am going to try to incorporate a weekly online live session -- not a podcast or vidcast, but instead of time when I sit at my computer (doing other work), waiting for students to pop in and ask questions, I'm going to try to develop materials I can deliver live that relate to how the students makes her way through the course. No jumping up and down, but some visual connection with students I see on other days face-to-face. And probably via a Google+ hangout. So I'm game this summer for using hangouts to meet in small groups to get used to the media.
Ah, Professor Bonk! An administrator met him recently at a conference and directed me to his website. I'm sure I won't have time to peruse until after this summer session is over, but I wondered what others thought of him. The administrator was impressed with the bells and whistles that Bonk presented at the conference as well as the enthusiasm and energy that you have mentioned.
ReplyDeleteShannon