One of the earliest problems with the MOOC phenomenon was discord: on one side there were distance/online education scholars devoted to digital learning as a transformative opportunity, on the other AI and Machine Learning mavens (whose models focused on the Tech side of EdTech) who were largely unaware of existing methods and progress and saw EdTech as a mechanism of convenience/ease/economy. MOOC was a term borne of experimentation and cutting-edge theory, a background it lost once MOOC became synonymous with LMS-based content streams.
One year ago, focused on the disparity between the freedom of the original MOOC and the limitations of the Frankenstein’s Monster MOOC built of venture capital and buttressed institutions, I made a call for scholars to step back from fighting for the MOOC monicker.
Love @RMoeJo‘s notion that we lost the term MOOC, not to mention his research and theoretics around the idea grounds the term #opened13
— Jim Groom (@jimgroom) November 8, 2013
Today, I am announcing a course I will lead in collaboration with Canvas network and a slew of writers, educators and scholars, scheduled to launch in January 2015. It’s a course about establishing tangible and repeatable creative writing practices (#cwmooc), built around the development and drafting of the written word. It will look very little like the MOOCs of Udacity/Coursera/edX. But it is a MOOC. And I am not shying away from calling it such.
All MOOCs, All The Time 