Yesterday (1/28/13) I enrolled in my first two MOOCs ("massive open online course" or "massively overrated online content," as you prefer). I quickly "unenrolled" from the one. After teaching online since 1994 I could see that there was little new to me in that course. It also seemed clear that the facilitator, an instructional designer with three years of online teaching experience, was using her MOOC at least in part to sell the book she co-authored. Mazel tov! I'll pass.
The other course, E-Learning and Digital Cultures, offered through Coursera by some professors at the University of Edinburgh looks thoughtful and challenging. The goal is deeper and more suited to my current exploration of how to bring the liberal arts back into management professional education.
All of this has been a bit overwhelming after one day, which is a good experience for me to see more of what my students see. Teaching online requires much more instructional design work, and often that seems to be what I do every day. It's important, as Naisbitt noted in Megatrends 2000, that increasing technology be offset by increasing connections with customers. Faculty-student interaction, already known as a powerful factor in students' decisions to persist and successfully graduate, must be worked on. Current question: How can I increase meaningful interactions with students through design changes in my courses?
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