Personal Blogs

This week we have been asked to reflect on the possibility of using a MOOC for our various professional capacities. My role is as the coordinator of the Dublin Learning City project. We are a consortium of Higher Educational Institutions working together with the local authority (Dublin City Council) and other educational bodies. Our goal is to work together towards becoming a Learning City, as defined by UNESCO. 

Many of the organisations involved already have MOOCs on various subjects, the question would be can the project itself involve a MOOC as a way of achieving its goal. It's an interesting idea. What I will do here is break down the acronym letter by letter and see whether there is something to be learned from it.

First off, the optional lowercase first letter: xMOOC or cMOOC? It seems obvious to me that the emphasis should be on connection and collaboration. Our project is geographically limited and, to an extent, limited to a certain field. We hope to enhance collaboration between practitioners and strengthen a community of practice. It seems obvious that a cMOOC would be the way to go if a MOOC is to be used.

M is for Massive. I think the applicability of a MOOC to our purposes depends on your definition of massive. There are a million people in Dublin City. There could be a benefit to a course on lifelong learning perhaps? But this would be an action, the likes of which could be taken up by other projects with deeper pockets. The most beneficial endeavour for our project would be one that sought to unite the perhaps hundreds of professionals in the life long learning field in the city. We can still call that massive if we want, but it is worth being clear about the scale we are talking about.

O is for Open. This is key. The project is all about being open. Open to new ideas, open to sharing practice, open to broadening the definition of learning.

O is also for Online. This again is key. What makes Dublin different to the other cities in Ireland is first and foremost size. Utilising the power of the internet is essential.

C is for course. Herein lies the rub. How's about a definition:

noun

1. Course is defined as a specific path that something follows or the way in which something develops.

We want to foster collaboration within certain parameters but so far what has been envisaged is less specific and defined than a most understandings of the word course. Obviously I am aware that many courses emphasise collaboration and see the most powerful learning as coming from the connections between participants. But even this course has prescribed activities at each step of the way. This is not really something that we had been talking about when we discussed ways to improve collaboration. 

Perhaps there is something in this that I could take away. Could the collaboration we seek be topic specific at any given point in time? Today we are discussing X and we are going to work towards activity Y. Not something that had crossed my mind but it could be worth exploring.

Hmmmmmm.....

And so to Block 2....

We are asked to write a blog post discussing our history with Open Education, so here goes:

I worked for a number of years on a project that aimed to encourage primary school class groups to make short films. It did so by providing resources, starting with a resource pack, that were open to all schools to use, free of charge. It progressed from there and offered sharing platforms for content that had been created. At one point we operated a video hosting platform that was closed in the sense that access was limited to registered school groups but open in the sense that this protection allowed for a greater level of sharing due to our negotiated music copyright license. As a self-employed individual I operated several websites in an open sense, sharing resources and learner-created content. I have also worked on a number of initiatives that sought to encourage participation in learning from less-represented groups. So in a number of ways I have been involved in open education. 

If I find the time I may expand this blog post as it could serve as an effective device for discussing openness. Is it openness to new participants? Or sharing to the world the product of a learning experience? Or an open attitude to reusing the work of others?