Planning

a M O O C

in 5 easy steps

by: jill kamas

Jill Kamas, Boulder, USA

This is the story of how I planned my first

MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).

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It all started One Year Ago The Department Chair told me I would be

teaching a MOOC to 5,000 students.

I knew what a MOOC was but did not have a clue how to actually make it happen.

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I pictured myself running about in a

wild & frenzied manner trying to create a personal

learning experience for 5000 students.

Then, I heard a voice….

Ha…OK God-like voice, show me how planning

for a class of 5,000 students is possible.

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Fire Starter & Guide

Yes, I’ve read about Connectivism, the

learning theory behind MOOCs. It says that

“learning consists of the ability to construct and

traverse learning networks.”

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Fire Starter & Guide

Throughout the semester, the students and I will be traversing & expanding our learning networks.

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Traditional Model: “Teacher as Expert”

Can not scale to

accommodate 1000’s of students.

Networked model: “Teacher as Guide”

Is able to scale

infinitely.

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We will be using the Networked Model

Fire Starter & Guide

I am not opposed to the idea but will you

explain why?

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Fire Starter & Guide

I know just who to call.

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Möbius – “Moby” Möbius syndrome is an extremely

rare congenital neurological disorder which is characterized by facial

paralysis and the inability to move the eyes from side to side.

Fire Starter & Guide Ben Henderson

Toronto, Canada 2 “Marlie”

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Ben Henderson Fire Starter & Guide

Hey Jill, what’s up?

Hello, Ben?

Would you be

interested in teaching

a MOOC with me

next semester?

Very interested … but, ahhh -

you know I’m a researcher not a teacher right?

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Okay…I’m listening… Of course…

your background in Biology,

makes you a perfect

counterpoint.

Why don’t you send over an

outline of what you’re thinking

so I can catch up with you?

OK. Bye now.

Will do. Call me when you’re ready.

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The course title is, “How to Make

Successful Learning Networks”.

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I’ll send Ben, diagrams of my

learning network related to MOOCs & Connectivism.

That will be the best way for him to

see the blogs, articles, videos, etc. that we can use for

the course.

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Find

ing In

form

ation

Creating & Sharing

Building Relationships

Find

ing P

eo

ple

w/Sam

e In

tere

sts

This is my learning interface

The web 2.0 apps I use most often.

Christopher Alexander

University

TED

This shows my most influential teachers, where I

found them and how we are all connected.

Owen Beard

Howard Reingold

Clay Shirky

Dan Pink

Seth Godin Sir Ken

Robinson

Michael Tavel

Douglas Darden

Fritjof Capra

Stephen Downes

Dave Cormier

George Siemans

Brian Yuhnke

Jackie Dobrovolny

Joni Dunlap

Mikaly Csikkzen- tmihaly

Chaos Theory Consilience The World is Flat-Friedman

These are the books I’ve read that most influenced

my values and beliefs.

The Book of Probes -McLuhan The Cathedral of the Absurd Wikinomics The Tipping Point Persepolis The Poetics of Space Invisible Cities -Calvino 2nd Sight-Carson The Unbearable Lightness of Being MAUS I The Sacred and the Profane-Eliade Creativity Metamorphosis -Kafka Flow The Necessary Revolution-Senge Drive-Pink Stewardship-Block

A Sand County Almanac-Leopold Collaboration Complexity The Omnivores Dilemma -Pollen Letters to a Young Poet-Rilke Dirt The 5th Discipline-Senge

Social Emergence

The Age of Speed

Being Digital

Deep Economy

The Stuff of Thought

Spark-Ratey

My Blog Roll

My Diigo Link

My Scoop.it Link

The large links will allow Ben to track my research paths

“Also, we will need to decide how we are going to connect: synchronously, asynchronously, via trails (diigo) and/or via tags.” Cheers, Jill PS Let me know when you have completed review.

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For the Next 2 Weeks Ben investigated my learning network by reading articles,

watching videos and engaging in lively online debate…

Hey Ben! Jill! Can you see me ok?

The more I learn about this, the more excited I am about the course.

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Yes. I can…

Purrrrr…

I’m not surprised a bit... Tell me what you think some of our challenges will be.

Well. Can you tell me a bit more about how we might fit into the interactions.

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The learning objects are really just their starting points.

We will use 3 types of planned interaction: asynchronous, trails (diigo, delicious) and tags.

All of our learning objects: readings, lectures, videos, podcasts, etc. will be posted so students can view them at their convenience or asynchronously

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So, what we want to do is give them a diversity of learning objects in many different formats.

Then what happens? How do we help guide the students and keep them engaged?

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Student engagement takes place mainly through their participation in learning activities. Their primary activity for this course is to make their own learning network.

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So, they will be setting up and using blog, youtube, twitter, diigo, delicious, RSS feed, google+ accounts?

Yes, to take-in, organize and synthesize information through direct application and conversation.

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We have to be active participants but avoid dominating the conversation.

We will schedule regular times to be active in the blogs, forums and on twitter so students can anticipate when they will be able to communicate or receive feedback.

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It sounds like a lot of our job is to exercise self-restraint and let the students have the room to experiment?

I have a feeling, knowing when to step in is going to require some experience. Some trial and error.

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Obviously, we will continue to develop each of these steps in greater detail.

Yes. Let’s get back and forth via email. It was good talking with you.

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Here’s a quick review of the five easy steps for planning a MOOC.

Much of the information in this comic can be attributed to Stephen Downes, George

Siemans and Dave Cormier.

Characters were created using Bitstrips.

Backgrounds were made with Adobe CSS and PPT