After 2012 was described as the year of the MOOC by The New York Times, it has been difficult to avoid this acronym, at least in digital education circles. Ostensibly offering free university level education, and attracting enrolment numbers in the tens of thousands for a single course, MOOCs have provoked much debate about online and distance provision, as well as the state of established higher education more generally. Much of the high-profile coverage has concerned MOOCs being offered by elite universities through online platforms provided by Coursera, edX, Udacity, and FutureLearn, however many other MOOC spaces have emerged, such as the European OpenUpEd platform, the Canvas Network or Blackboard’s OpenEducation, as well as many ‘connectivist’ MOOCs that often take place on the open web.
Below are links to current MOOCs being offered, however this is certainly not an exhaustive list and you may be interested in studying an alternative course – just let your tutor know if you want to do this and you have another MOOC in mind. Remember that your primary concern is to conduct your micro-ethnography, with a focus on notions of community culture. You do not necessarily have to participate formally in the activities prescribed within your chosen MOOC, and you are certainly not expected to complete it. However, you will have most of the four weeks in block 2 to try and get a sense of what it is like to be a ‘MOOC learner’ and how a sense of ‘community’ in your chosen course might be understood.
Use the links below to find a MOOC of interest, and importantly, one that is currently under way and open for enrolment:
https://www.coursera.org/courses
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/upcoming
https://openeducation.blackboard.com/mooc-catalog/catalog?tab_tab_group_id=_10_1
