Getting Mooc-ed

Dedicating an hour a fortnight to learning with my peers all over Australia

I'm new to MOOC's - Massive Open Online Courses. The thought of working at my pace through a series of videos, tasks that are shared with global education communities and building on the ideas of unknown peers does sound appealing. But I was wondering how I would go making the commitment to really drive my own learning. Yet when I thought about it it is often what I ask my students to do, so what better way to walk in their shoes then to try it myself!

As I near the end of this MOOC https://csermoocs.appspot.com/nextsteps/ focussing on the Digital Technologies Curriculum in Years 7 & 8, I thought it may be timely to make a list of the things that helped me get through the course and take from it what I needed. See below for this list. ​

1. Set aside a regular time in the fortnight to work on it. This meant I had a regular set aside time and headspace to work on it. 
2. Avoid submitting things you have already developed - I enjoyed applying myself to a task that I may have already had developed resources for  but looking at it in new ways. And it meant that hour I had set aside could be used to work on it as well - developing resources and learning in the MOOC = winning. 
3. The videos are handy for explaining concepts for both peers and students. You can access the links for every video on Youtube. The one on the left is simple yet accessible for students and staff about which graph, when. 

4. I found sharing one thing I had learned in the fortnight with a buddy held me accountable - whether it was sharing a resource, having a quick chat about an idea or commenting on a MOOC particpants idea/activity made me feel more connected. 

Ted Talk by Anant Agarwal - Why massively open courses still matter