If I decide to participate publicly in a class with 2000 students enrolled, a “massively open online course”, what is the price? Supposedly, participation in the course is free. But I am not so sure.
In his TED talks presentation “Predicting the next 5000 days of the web,” Kevin Kelley describes the semantic web. He does not dwell on the idea but he does state that the “price is transparency”. I suspect that’s a clue to my hesitation.
After all I have participated in small online courses and did not feel any hesitation to participate. So why do I feel hesitant to participate in this one? I suspect that it may be the very connected nature of this course. We are not enrolled in a closed system with a login, a password, and a start and end date. There seems to be no rules.
We were asked to introduce ourselves and talk about why we are interested and what has to happen for this course to be a success. As an educator and a manager of learning technology development, I feel compelled to pursue any potential learning theory that may help me develop better content. However, if I am being honest, the format of the course was the biggest draw for me. I am a strong proponent of online classes mostly because I believe online classes remove barriers and make education more accessible. I was fascinated by the idea of the openness of the course and I want to experience it first hand. It’s a little ironic to me that the same openness that drew me here also may be the characteristic that prevents me from participating fully.
So let me give up a little of my opaqueness and admit that I don’t really understand yet the idea of connectivism as a learning theory. However, I do suspect that the way I learn has changed in the last 5 years and I am trying to understand that change and even to decide if I like the change. If you are also not ready to examine connectivism as a learning theory, I would like to know if you have any thoughts about the openness of the course? How do you feel about the “massiveness” of the information available? If you cannot possibly follow every thread, do you worry that someone else will have already posted every thought you have and so why should you bother? What is the CCK08 course costing you?
