Multilitteratus Incognitus

The other day I had an interesting (but brief exchange) with Kelvin Bentley on twitter about MOOC completion.  This isn't really a topic that I come back to often, given that completion-rates for MOOCs, as a topic, seems to have kind of died down, but it is fun to come back to it. To my knowledge, no one has come up with some sort of taxonomy of the different degrees of completion of a MOOC†. But let me rewind for a second.  How did we get to the topic of MOOC completion?  Well, I've been attempting to make my extended CV more accessible (to me).  In the past, I used a WYSIWYG HTML publishing platform to manage my extended CV‡.  The idea was that I could easily export it and just push it on the web.  In practice, I never did this, and when I changed computers it became a hassle to maintain. So, I moved everything over to google docs for cleanup (and easier updates).  In cleaning up my CV sections (I am not done, btw!), I did make a startling se...

For the past semester I've mostly ignored synchronous learning on coursera.  Instead of consuming materials as they are released, I log in once a week, download the videos for the course, and I keep them in my video library.  If there are textual materials available as well, I donwload those, but I tend to focus more on video materials. When inspiration (or curiosity) strikes, I dive into the specific course of interest and have a video play.  At the moment I tend to play lectures in chronological order, the order that they were listed in - in the course I got them from. So, why not use coursera as "intended"?  Well, the predominant reason is the lack of time. These past two semesters have been quite busy for me and I don't have the time or inclination to do things as they are released by content providers (yes, I know - the noun used was quite deliberate).  There are also a lot of interesting courses being offered, not just on coursera, but also other MO...

The other day, while catching up on my (ever growing) pocket reading list, I came across a post from, friend and fellow MobiMOOC colleague, Inge on MOOCs.  It was a rather on-the-nose post about MOOCs, learning, assessment, and the discourse used in MOOCs about learners. Concurrently I am working with a Rhizo team on a social network analysis post where the topic of 'completion' came up, and we started discussing  the real connotations of completion.  How does one measure 'completion' in a MOOC? Is it a worthwhile metric? and what about engagement?  Finally, to add to this volatile mix of intellectual ideas, I am working on a conferece presentation, with fellow lifelong learner and MOOCer Suzan†. These raw materials made me think back to the early discussions on MOOCs (before the 'x' ones came out) and discussions about lurkers in MOOCs.  Before the xMOOC came out we didn't seem to frame non-visible members of the community as 'dropouts' b...

A while back I came across a post by Martin Weller titled MOOC Completion rates DO matter . Because my Pocket account was overflowing with some great content (including this one), I thought it was high time that I read this article ;-).  In this short post Martin writes that completion rates do matter in MOOCs, taking the opposite view of some cMOOC folks.  He goes on to tackle the analogy that MOOCs are like newspapers and that people don't necessarily read all sections, or even visit all sections.  As someone who doesn't really read physical newspapers that often any more (I only bought one last summer so I could get the Asterix comic that came with it), the analogy only gets me so far. I don't know what sort of analogy is valid for MOOC participant behaviors.  After pondering this a bit, I don't think that there is one analogy that will encompass all behaviors.  At the beginning of the MOOC I think the analogy of window shopping is most appropriate fo...

View from Itea, Greece Some people bring a book on vacation (which I have) and others immerse themselves in the local culture (which I am also doing to some extent), but since I find myself lucky enough to be vacationing somewhere with fast wifi access I decided to continue to MOOC while I am on vacation from the day job. I honestly don't know how well the experiment will go, but I decided to follow three MOOCs. One on FutureLearn, focusing on management (making those connections with my MBA), and two MOOCs on MiriadaX, the Spanish MOOC platform: one focusing on social media and marketing, and another focusing on media studies called "the 3rd golden age of television." I didn't really think about my MOOCing until I had a back and forth with a friend and colleague on a Facebook about "completing MOOCs" and whoever completes one gets a unicorn ;). I guess the point he was trying to make is that completion is mission impossible. This made me think of my presen...