#EDCMOOC2: MOOC madness: After the Gold Rush

I’ve taken Edinburgh University’s E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC (Massive Open Online course) twice this year. The first time it was my first ever MOOC and it provided some of the most immersive and engaging learning in which I have ever participated. 44000 students took #edcmooc that first time – engaging with it and each other months before it started.

We were in FaceBook and on Twitter then Google+ and into Communities… This social side kept me engaged and happy. I found support and encouragement – and made friends of strangers (Fraingers). Brilliant.

I told myself that I needed to take the course again to engage with the technical tools – which I’d sort of avoided … But – then came Penn State’s #artmooc and MoMA’s #artinquiry - courses only tangentially related to my work. I found that so much benefit came from these contingent encounters - and blogged about that (below).

Then #edcmooc came around again and I was one of eight people invited to act as a Community Teaching Assistant (CTA) – and I just could not resist.

My first #edcmooc was to learn MOOC… and now we could learn CTA by being CTA. Fabulous! (Also – frankly – I was really flattered to be asked!)

It was a delicate task to be a CTA attempting to add to the experience of new #edcmooc’ers whilst not in any way diluting their experiences. But we plunged in with good will and optimism and positive regard for the new students … and hey – it seemed to work. Rajiv Bajaj blogged about his #edcmooc experiences (http://pursuingmoocs.wordpress.com/) – and the CTAs. He said that we had been light touch but supportive enough to hold on to those who might otherwise has spun off. We had been friendly and caring and useful and valued.

With my own students, rather than *teach* digital literacy, I wanted them to discover the joy and potential of digital learning the way I had. All were encouraged to join either #edcmooc or #ds106. A final joy for me has been that one of my ‘meat’ world students has taken and passed #edcmooc.

Next http://becomingeducational.wordpress.com/ - blogging about our new module. #becomingeducational has embedded within it everything learned from #edcmooc, #artmooc and #artinquiry. 

2013 – what a year for MOOCs! Happy 2014!