Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 26 seconds

So you wanna facilitate a cMOOC?

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 26 seconds

So Viplav invites us to hack #rhizo15 and ask our own question for the week (I think it’s what he is saying

At first I was like, of course we don’t *need* Dave, we just like him πŸ™‚

Then I was like, this is what happened last year when #rhizo14 was over. Ppl started creating new weeks then we lost the formality of weekly topics and stayed active anyway often cross-blogging about similar topics

Then I was like, i have co-facilitated MOOCs before, I can do this!

Then I was like, but can I do it like Dave?

So between Finalizing my column for hybridped and reading my students’ assignments and feeding my girl, I came up with some possibilities…

This one inspired by Autumm: Must the rhizome die? Metaphor and reality (you can go too far with metaphors imho)

This one inspired by a year-long discussion #rhizo14: can you have community without exclusion? Or, how do you create a permeable community (inspired by sthg Terry Elliott tweeted)

This one inspired by my students: is there any educational activity we can do that possibly engages every student (thank you for reminding me that it’s probably not possible if I assign it – so maybe the trick is to leave negative space for it? So what is the balance between giving some guidance/structure and leaving space?)

Also: how do we know our students are really engaged? I had a student who seemed engaged last class then he blogged a really thoughtful post critiquing the scavenger hunt activity (and there is another post coming up reflecting on that)

Whew. Almost 1am. Gotta get some zzzz

Of course u could always try to answer this one: when does Maha sleep

6 thoughts on “So you wanna facilitate a cMOOC?

  1. The context. Why is someone “taking” a “course”? It’s a requirement for some kind or accreditation. #rhizo15 like #rhizo14 is a conversation. No one is required to participate. The desire to learn whatever can be learned here is intrinsic. A facilitator like Dave, is like one who makes the first statement in an improv group, and then the troupe takes over, no one knowing where the narrative will go.

  2. Yes! (makes a little fist) Second time I got mentioned in Maha’s blog!

    I feel like maybe I need to apologize about the death metaphor or start issuing disclaimers in my tweets and blog posts about it. I want to say I’m really sorry if it seems morbid or twisted. I know it is a touchy subject that many people do not like to talk about. Please know that I’m not taking it lightly. It just seems like the perfect metaphor to use for endings when inside of a metaphor for something that is alive. Not all things die of natural causes – biological immortality is a real thing and something everyone should think about when they eat lobster – but everything that lives eventually dies.

    As Dave issues us the challenge to look at what it means to have/be a teacher… and what it means to have a course… with a specific end date… I start thinking of death. But when I think about the prospect of the students continuing the class and taking it off on their own I think of immortality… but when I think about the differences between what was #rhizo14 and what is now #rhizo15 I can’t help but think about lobsters.

    1. Lobsters. As in cooking them while they are alive. As in by starting rhizo15 we killed rhizo14 prematurely? I don’t think that’s the case, if it’s what you were implying. Tag me when you blog this please Autumm i am sure u need extended space to express this and it is a really new way for me to think. But for me rhizomes as in weeds r hard to kill coz others show up in their place n stuff, so rhizo doesn’t die coz of that… Gotta go πŸ™‚

  3. Pingback: Autumm Caines

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