When I signed up with the course I did so without much investigation or thought. To be sure, I’ve been online and active for two decades and know the web fairly well, and I’d even taught an online course way back in the pre-web era. But I figured I should get up to speed on this that and the other. So, I took a quick look at the description, saw that Howard Rheingold was on board, and I signed up.
How could I miss? I’d learn about some technology, learn what other folks are up to, and meet some interesting people. It was a no-brainer.
But, I didn’t realize something that I might have picked up if I’d read the “fine print” more carefully:
In 2013, the DML Hub, as part of the MacArthur Foundation supported Digital Media and Learning Initiative, launched Reclaim Open Learning, an effort to explore the intersections between higher education, open learning, and the connected learning model in the midst of MOOC mania. The effort focused on returning to core pedagogical and learning principles, the ethos of the open web, and end-to-end faculty and student innovation when attention was shifting to large institutionalized initiatives and old-school top-down pedagogical and learning models...
It’s the implications of “MOOC mania” and “returning to core pedagogical and learning principles” that I either didn’t notice or didn’t think about. And if I’d thought about them it’s not clear whether or not that would have gotten me to where I am now.
It’s not, mind you, that I’m particularly interested in MOOCs. I think “MOOC mania” is a reasonable characterization of the phenomenon that, for example, lead one University of Virginia board member to go nuts – though as I recall, they don’t call them “board members” at UVA. MOOCs are a certain kind of pedagogical system and they have a place, but you can’t base a whole college curriculum on MOOCs and MOOCs aren’t appropriate for the things I’ve got in mind for myself.
But it’s not at all clear to me that the creators of MOOCs had lost touch with “core pedagogical and learning principles.” Perhaps they’d just focused on one set of principles to the exclusion of others.
Let’s continue with the Connected Courses fine print:
One of the outcomes of this effort was a set of innovation prize winners – phonar, ds106, and FemTechNet – that exemplified core principles and approaches that shared a family resemblance both philosophically and in their implementation. These courses were anchored in a university course that stressed critical thinking in the context of creative production, and which had created infrastructures and modes of participation that lived on the open web. Over time, these projects have built a strong online community and brand that has a life outside of the university course. Together, they provide a set of models and learning that we felt could inform the development of more open courses that are highly participatory and aligned with the principles of connected learning.
OK. “Critical thinking in the context of creative production” – sounds good, but what does it mean in practice?
Three Exemplars
So I went to the web sites for the three courses that are mentioned and snatched a bit of prose from each.