In the February 18 Inside Higher Ed article, "Try, Try Again," Carl Straumsheim provides a virtual rebuttal to Bogost's critique of the unnecessarily "hot" medium of MOOCs and their flipped classroom Trojan Horse (see my last blog). Drawing principally from a visiting professor at Princeton, Keith Devlin, and his MOOC Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, Straumsheim plays up the narrative that MOOCs are struggling to overcome significant difficulties, especially concerning the completion rate. For instance, Devlen has kept the content but has revised the structure and delivery of the course, which has led to more students persisting beyond the first couple of weeks. However, Devlen
declined to provide any numbers, since enrollment varies between the fall and spring semesters, but said the results mean he has finally reached a point where he has moved from "crude-tuning to fine-tuning." |
The radical change in the structure and experience of taking the course, according to Devlen, is through borrowing (composition/translation) the participatory and collaborative gameplay of World of Warcraft, where the groups form in order to assist each other accomplish tasks that can only be done in coordination with multiple parties. Devlen explained that:
Right now, those groups form manually through the discussion forum, and, Devlin acknowledged, the most successful groups are often those where members meet in real life on a regular basis. He said he is exploring web-based tools that, in a future iteration of the MOOC, could pair students with like-minded study partners. |
Thus, once the formerly marginalized quality of online education, namely, the inherently connectivist and participatory qualities, are amplified with the composition of xMOOC and MMORPGs, a detour becomes possible. Indeed, as Straumsheim quotes Devlin, "the course is now explicitly about participation, not about getting a good grade at the end.” Thus, make MOOCs about the experiences that are possible because of the online milieu.