CE2

=Connectivist MOOCs: Learning and collaboration, possibilities and limitations= > A Collaborative Exploration (CE) on the implications of open digital education. Participants will be especially encouraged to consider the unintended or non-desired consequences.


 * //If you want to participate, read more and eventually you'll get to the link to the form for applying.//
 * //If you want a better sense of why unintended directions could be a concern// around open digital education, look at these selected quotes and sources.
 * //If you want to know what a CE requires of you//, review the expectations and mechanics.
 * //If you are wondering how to define a meaningful and useful line of inquiry//, let us present a scenario for the CE and hope this, together with the quotes and sources, stimulate you to apply to participate. We will then let participants judge for themselves whether their inquiries are relevant.

The core faculty members in [|Critical and Creative Thinking] (CCT) at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB, an urban public university) want help as they decide how to contribute to efforts at UMB to promote open digital education. (CCT is, in brief, a graduate program that seeks to "provide its students with knowledge, tools, experience, and support so they can become constructive, reflective agents of change in education, work, social movements, science, and creative arts.")
 * Scenario**

CCT began to make the transition into online education almost a decade ago and is now housed the continuing and professional studies unit at UMB responsible for online courses. As befits a program that is about reflective practice as well as critical and creative thinking, the core CCT faculty members have favored online approaches based on best practices for teaching-learning //without computers// and emphasized use of the computers to teach or learn things that are difficult to teach or learn with pedagogical approaches that are not based on computers (e.g., making rapid connections with informants in PBL courses). UMB is now hosting its first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and is planning more. CCT wants its involvement to take into account active discussions about MOOCs and to foster ongoing research and evaluation in this rapidly evolving (and much-hyped) area.

It is already clear that CCT's emphasis will //not// be on x-MOOCs, i.e., those designed for transmission of established knowledge, but on c-MOOCs. "c" here stands for "connectivist" in recognition of the learning that takes place through horizontal connections and sharing made within communities that emerge around, but extend well beyond, the materials provided by the MOOC hosts. What CCT is not so clear about yet is the kinds (plural) of //learning// that are happening in cMOOCs. What are their possibilities and limitations? Ditto for kinds of //creativity//, //community//, //collaboration//, and //openness//. By "limitations" CCT is especially interested in anticipating undesired consequences.

If you want to appreciate why unanticipated directions could be a concern in open digital education, consider the quotes and sources box below. But, if the broad topic of possibilities and limitations of c-MOOCs is enough for you to be interested, skip ahead to the section on expectations and mechanics of the CE. include component="page" wikiName="cct" page="CE2q" editable="1" include component="page" wikiName="cct" page="CE2m" editable="1"