Owen, 

 

As you know I have tried hard to make I-net communication work in my
teaching.  I am coming slowly, however, to belief that one cannot learn from
or teach to any person whom you cannot hug or punch in the nose, if you feel
the overwhelming need.  

 

N

 

From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2013 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Forget MOOCs--Let's Use MOOA

 

Nick: re bringing people together as an important part of academic life, I
couldn't agree more, especially undergraduate.

 

I did take a (*very* tough) grad course at UNM remotely.  There were two
ways to attend remotely: Going to SFCC and using a specially wired room so I
could ask questions, or simply my computer that evening .. no interaction
but easy to repeat parts of the class that were elusive.

 

We (the students) actually did have a personal aspect .. we used skype and
google groups.  And this really worked well.  But being at the grad level,
it was pretty much business like.  I did go to one class just to meet and
greet.  I also attended Office Hours via Skype.

 

MOOCs are doing better than that, and are accelerating due to the
convergence of administrative and "social" software, as well as the actual
MOOC-ware itself.

 

So I'd guess MOOCs will best succeed in grad level classes, and even more
for professional education.  You'll see LinkedIn members posting their
classes and proof of completion.  I've taken an entire MOOC, coursera's
first offering, Machine Learning.  I've also scanned a few others .. Scott
Page's Model Thinking was surprisingly good for being so broad.  This stuff
really is useful.

 

   -- Owen

 

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