Thanks, Shaimaa for the detailed reply!

I think you are so right about the importance of the marketing. I was thinking about it but unable to articulate it properly because the terms marketing and promotion have a business rather than learning connotation. But definitely in some of the MOOCs, courses have reputation (e.g. The instructor, people like Roth on Coursera, and for me, people like Dave Cormier on #rhizo14) or build-up (e.g. Cathy Davidson’s FutureEd had lots of press beforehand) and all of this raises awareness and interest. Sometimes giving a taster works really well, too, as in Cathy Davidson and #flsustain giving learners access to the free eBooks (and Dave blogging about his course in advance) – these can help learners engage BEFORE anything even starts.

You are right about importance of reflection. I put it in there but I don’t think I emphasized it enough. Great experiences like Namaa school of sustainable development have built-in daily reflection sessions that I think take the participants’ learning to another level, particularly because they are younger.

RE: logistics, though, I think they become more important the busier the learner’s life becomes, right? For example, many ppl do their learning online for logistical reasons, right?

Thanks again!