This week we concentrated on completing the micro ethnography on ‘community membership’ inside a MOOC.
The ethnography: I placed my ethnography here and was glad to see that some classmates commented on it. As noted in my comments, my chosen MOOC had been laid out in a clear and sequential way: the curriculum was set, students had a clear path of progression, and discussions were optional. However this strict structure did not allow much room to manoeuvre in terms of co-creation, collaboration, teaching presence and social presence.
Whilst a MOOC has much to offer in terms of breaking down barriers to accessing education, allowing increased class sizes, and exposure to many cultures, the MOOC does not straightforwardly deliver education in the way that many institutions are promising. Missing is much of the educational experience of a full time online course. Aspects of the community of inquiry model, so important to the creation of an online culture, example sharing personal meaning, collaboration, connecting ideas and exchange of information, is very difficult to achieve on a MOOC. There are exceptions to this if you intrinsically motivate your students to participate. The interplay between the extrinsic forces acting on persons and the intrinsic motives and needs inherent in human nature is the territory of Self-Determination Theory. When a MOOC achieves the delicate balance of convincing students that they want to participate, then that MOOC is on to something.
Peer Interactions & ethnographies: I spent some time in the last day or two looking at my classmates ethnographies which were as broad and diverse as a vibrant Arabian marketplace. The quality of the artefacts makes me quite proud of being part of such a talented group. It was interesting to see how different people focused on both specific interactions and/or broad scope.
I will continue to comment on classmates ethnographies as they go up but the several comments I made on their work are on the links below.
https://edc20.education.ed.ac.uk/jjack/2020/03/02/ethnographic-object/
https://edc20.education.ed.ac.uk/msiegenthaler/2020/03/02/micro-ethnography/
https://edc20.education.ed.ac.uk/mwolfindale/2020/02/28/micro-ethnography-entangled-communities/
https://edc20.education.ed.ac.uk/vmuscat/2020/03/01/micro-netnography-artefact/