Week 5 Summary: Feb. 13-19

Week 5…

Once again I am struggling to find time to post my thoughts on my lifestream blog.

I am working on a comic strip for my micro-ethnography; I think it might be a creative way to present my findings and to ‘re-brand’ the MOOC experience into something new and fun. Here, you will find a sneak peak in THIS post.

In THIS post, I talk about how the IoT MOOC has taken the educational community to an arguably non-educational and more social space: WhatsApp. The IoT MOOC WhatsApp chat group is limited to 250 members and is only for those who are most enthusiastic participants (not me). Knox (2015) mentions that social network spaces like Facebook and Twitter can be identified as “intense sites of contemporary community culture;’ can WhatsApp be considered as part of this group? In my experience with WhatsApp with my classmates, Chenée and Iwona (from other courses), I can accurately report that the community culture, camaraderie and support I’ve received from participating in discussion on WhatsApp has been invaluable to my studies at U of Edinburgh. Whenever I have a question, make a hypothesis or need support, my friends on WhatsApp are there for me…isn’t this the epitome of community culture in a digital world where are separated only through geographical distances?

And although it’s not showing in my lifestream blog, I am spending much time researching and creating my micro-ethnography. My motto is always to ‘enjoy the process.’

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References

Knox, J. 2015. Community Cultures. Excerpt from Critical Education and Digital Cultures. In Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. M. A. Peters (ed.). DOI 10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_124-1