My experiment with MOOC

MOOC is really massive. It is massive in terms of its reach, massive in terms of its effect and massive in terms of shaking the foundation of conventional learning model. MOOC stands for Massive Open  Online Course. The word ‘open’ means it a free for all from anywhere in the world and that makes it immensely powerful.
My recent experiment with MOOC has been so exciting that these days I can’t seem to stop talking about it.
When my younger daughter joined Stanford University, I too decided to join Stanford’s MOOC. If she was joining her dream college then I too was joining in to check the experience!  For me, it was more of an experiment, that too without a fee! I enrolled for two courses – a crash course on creativity by Tina Seelig and Designing new learning environment by Paul Kim. While registering I had mentioned that I would have up to 3 hours a week to spend on each course. In reality, I’m spending more time because the assignments are quite intense! I’m not complaining.
The courses started on 17^th October and will end on 17^th December so I am exactly midway with the course as I write this blog post. As I started writing I realized that I’ve more to say than a normal blog post so I’m going to make this into a series of blog posts.
I would like to start by describing how the experience has been so far. It has been exciting and fun in equal doses! I feel that within a month I have learnt a lot about the topic. I have elaborated on ideas and have learnt a lot about online tools and techniques. Creating one Prezi and then more, taking photos, editing and then using them to make my point in the assignment has been a good learning. Along with photos, I have also explored the world of music and the technology around it. Not only that but I also experimented with making smallish films and short videos for effective presentation.
One of the great realizations I had was that one can’t assume the device that would be used to connect to the internet. It could be a laptop, a tablet, an iPhone, an Android device or any other smart phone. When I publish something, the content I create needs to be seen on any of these devices, to be viewed in any of the browsers.
For the assignment I have written 1000 word essays and  peer-reviewed work for others. I’ve met fellow students online and have done assignments in teams. Mind you, before we began, I did not know a single fellow student out of the 40,000 who joined the course. I formed teams with students from Philippines, Singapore, UK, US, Columbia, Canada and peer-reviewed assignments from China, Russia, Poland, India, US, Spain! I don’t think any class can get more global than this!! Granted that not everyone in a team is equally committed since this being an open, free course, many have joined just to see what it is. They do not have either time or will or both, to continue but then there are many like me who are hooked!
Both Tina and Paul are wonderful experts in their subject and have done lot of work around the globe so they could connect to us students via videos and engage us immediately. In my next blog post I’m going to write about the course content, the technology and the pedagogy. Stay tuned please!