Hi Maha! I’m so glad that you took the time to spell out your thoughts in this post (something I didn’t take time out to do). While I’m enjoying Blendkit so far, I think I perhaps (wrongly?) expected some kind of community building activity. Most of the text regarding online learning I have read strongly encourages this, so I kind of assumed, and this is my first try at a MOOC- so I had no other experience to pull from. I’ve read in places/heard at conferences that MOOCs are often successful because of the community built around the topic. In the first week of Blendkit, I feel I have only been able to connect to a few people (you, Mark, Toine) and it took a lot of work to just start connecting with you 3!

I like how you mentioned community building in a f2f course, too. I think in any course- f2f or online- people remember most their experiences/relationships and not necessarily the content. I just came out of teaching high school (I changed careers only 1 month ago) and many of my former students have been communicating with me via email since I left. I don’t know if they’ll remember all the historical facts they learned in my class, but I’m hoping they’ll remember life lessons we’ve discussed in our emails after my departure.

Thank again for the thoughtful post- it’s inspired me to take time to reflect, later on, on my expectations for the Blendkit MOOC vs. experiences so far.