Lifestream, Comment on A Micro-Ethnography? by Renee Furner

Your wry observations made me smile, Dirk – and it was, as others have commented, impressively crafted.
I’m interested to know what the course materials were like for creating online and blended learning – were they similarly ‘instructionist’?
You note that those seeking an online course should be careful to choose something that matches what they are looking for – be it community or content. Do you think that the choice of ‘best’ learning environment is just down to individual preference, or do some have more pedagogic value than others?

Also – I blogged about ‘the intimacy of the xMOOC’ while on IDEL. If you’re interested, I’ve opened the post up – I can’t seem to see how to make it public but you should be able to view it when logged-in to EASE. If it doesn’t work (and you’re still keen to read it – there is mention of pyjamas, ice cream and toilet trips) let me know, and I’ll add you as a user.
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Lifestream, Comment on Digital_Ethnography by Renee Furner

Even though it wasn’t what you fully intended, I thought this was very nicely put together, Clare. Your use of image is really effective.

For the 5000 participants, was this on this, single iteration of your course or spread of previous iterations as well? If just this one, then wow – that really is massive!

I liked your observation that “Many people applied the taught elements to their own local community based projects.” Perhaps nowadays when our lives are so enmeshed in technology we are less likely to seek community online (i.e. because tech is ubiquitous the novelty and or utopian vision has worn off somewhat). Certainly I’m aware that I’m generally (not always) more likely to engage in dialogue about concepts from my studies with friends and local peers than I am with fellow course participants.

Or, has the rise of SNSs changed the types of community we seek online? Moving away from affinity groups and towards communities based on established relational (friendship/peer) networks? Or, perhaps it is as Walther (1997) suggests, and community is to a degree dependent on anticipated future interaction… more questions than answers from me (as usual), I’m afraid.

Thanks for sharing.

Renée

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micro-ethnography

I’m almost too embarrassed to post this. It’s been such a trying day. Owing to my hard disk going down, I’ve been trying to work off a really rubbish DELL laptop. Only.. I don’t have any of the applications I need installed, can’t install them because I’m not an administrator, and beyond that I just don’t really know my way around Windows as well as OSX. Hitch after hitch.. in the end I realised that I could (kind of) use the mac I poured 750 millilitres of water into four and a half years ago. Its screen doesn’t work (repair costs more than a new PowerBook, despite the piece that is broken costing less than a pound. Note to self- must learn to micro solder) and I haven’t updated anything in ‘a while’.. but it was easier to attempt this on my TV screen than continue with the DELL. I’ll try to upload a still visual tomorrow, with some notes, to connect what I have said to some theory.

Thanks for watching/listening.

 

Update – I’ve re-recorded the audio. Not ‘amazing’ quality still, but best I could do under the circumstances.

Update 2 – I’ve put together a text-based version with discussion of the findings using sway.com.

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Description: MOOC 4.0: The Next Revolution in Learning
By Renha
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Huffington Post article by Otto Scharmer (MIT lecturer) on the pilot of a new type of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course): MOOC 4.0. He describes the evolution of MOOCs:

MOOC 1.0 – One-to-Many: Professor lecturing to a global audience
MOOC 2.0 – One-to-One: Lecture plus individual or small-group exercises
MOOC 3.0 – Many-to-Many: Massive decentralized peer-to-peer teaching.
MOOC 4.0 – Many-to-One: Deep listening among learners as a vehicle for sensing one’s highest future possibility through the eyes of others.

I think the MOOC I am participating in is still MOOC 1.0…

The pilot that Scharmer refers to has some fairly impressive statistics:

  • Eighty-eight percent of the respondents said in an exit survey that the course was either “eye-opening” (52%) or “life-changing” (36%).

So, what makes it different?

  • Formation of social fields is facilitated, linked to location hubs and ‘clinic circles’;
  • It includes 75-minute synchronous sessions (global) focused on mindfulness;
  • There is a focus on empathetic listening;
  • It intentionally sets out to connect students.

Such a striking difference to my own MOOC experience.

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We had 2012 as the year of the MOOC, 2014 was probably the year of the MOOC maturation, and I’m calling it for 2016, the year that university Vice Chancellors and Principals start looking and…

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Martin Weller’s (Ed Techie) provides an interesting critique of the MOOC business model. Links back to Lister et al.’s (2009) point about viability being tied to economic sustainability.