This week my chosen open course started “EXPLORING E-LEARNING FOR HEALTH” from the University of Nottingham.. I do not want to say too much more about that until I’m ready to consider my research. I’m keen to see if it’s possible to track or map the community using the matrix presented by Kozinets:
I’ve also been interested in the tensions outlined by Lister et al between politics, commerce, culture and the development of the internet. Sub cultures that are not really counter-cultures as such, but often wide-spread communities for like-minded people to express themselves without being stigmatised. Arguable, a powerful draw of all users of the web. Equally, the internet also provides the means under which such sub-cultures (such as “weeaboos”) become placed under intense, sometimes unwelcome or unfair, comment and criticism. Drawing this back to education I am minded that within classrooms virtual or physical, but particularly large classes as offered by MOOCs, there will be a multitude of backgrounds drawing people to the “open” mode of study. The true nature of which is not always evident either when being a “newbie lurker” (see above diagram) is always an option.
I’ve tried to use Twitter more this week. I’m starting to recognise names of my fellow students and look forward to reading their input or posts, which also suggests our community is starting to take shape, at least in my mind.
We had our Hangouts seminar this week two which I found to be very useful. I’m starting to get in to the habit of supplying meta data on most of my lifestream posts that are not self-descriptive at least.
p.s. I also note that I did not supply a week 4 roundup, which I’ll get to next week.
Hello Colin, good to see the lifestream summary back in place this week.
‘I’m keen to see if it’s possible to track or map the community using the matrix presented by Kozinets:’
I’ll look forward to seeing how this works out. Without pre-empting what might happen, it will be interesting to see how well you feel the model put forward by Kozinets is able to account for the community. I wonder whether it would be worth trying to map the community onto his matrix, as a way of testing how robust it is, whilst also prompting you to reflect on the community itself?
‘Drawing this back to education I am minded that within classrooms virtual or physical, but particularly large classes as offered by MOOCs, there will be a multitude of backgrounds drawing people to the “open” mode of study. The true nature of which is not always evident either when being a “newbie lurker” (see above diagram) is always an option.’
This is interesting as it has prompted to me think for the first time about whether MOOCs have a more diverse background than some other forms of learning. On the one hand with participants in the thousands, it would seem likely to be the case. However perhaps the fact that these courses tend to be optional (as in, participants choose to opt in), non-credit bearing (for the most part), specialist in subject matter, and require a certain level of access and confidence using digital technology, might instead mean that they tend to attract a narrower body of students than might be the case in other settings? I wonder, does the size of a MOOC cohort necessarily correlate with greater diversity in the student body? Perhaps this is something to think about in relation to your MOOC for the micro ethnography exercise?
‘Equally, the internet also provides the means under which such sub-cultures (such as “weeaboos”) become placed under intense, sometimes unwelcome or unfair, comment and criticism.’
I think something that would help your weekly summaries Colin is to perhaps include hyperlinks to the bits of content you are referring to (for instance the Weaboo video). With the amount of content coming into the lifestreams – and yours is quite prolific, varied and colourful – it really helps if you can make explicit in the summary if you are talking about particular bits of content (which you are) rather than more generally discussing topics more generally. The weekly summary is intended to be a reflection on the nature of the lifestream therefore it’s really helpful to make a clear link between the summary and the lifestream itself.
‘I’ve tried to use Twitter more this week. I’m starting to recognise names of my fellow students and look forward to reading their input or posts, which also suggests our community is starting to take shape, at least in my mind.’
From recollection, does this represent a shift in how you feel about Twitter compared to at the beginning of the course, Colin? Are you beginning to warm to this type of interaction? If so, what is it that has changed? And does this have anything to say about the nature of community?
‘p.s. I also note that I did not supply a week 4 roundup, which I’ll get to next week.’
That’s great if you can go back and do that because we do look for them to all be in place within the assessment criteria for the exercise.