1 00:00:01,279 --> 00:00:08,605 In this video, I'm going to go through a conceptual model of cMOOCs, 2 00:00:08,605 --> 00:00:14,150 based on my experience with a number of MOOCs, 3 00:00:14,150 --> 00:00:17,149 but particularly the Learning Creative Learning cMOOC 4 00:00:17,149 --> 00:00:22,830 that's currently running at Mitch Resnick's Lifelong Kindergarten Group 5 00:00:22,830 --> 00:00:25,361 at the MIT Media Lab. 6 00:00:26,437 --> 00:00:30,433 So - so a couple of things, before I'm getting started here: 7 00:00:30,433 --> 00:00:37,000 This is just an experiment, like LCL: I hope people take it. 8 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:41,045 in the spirit I make it, which I'm just playing around with ideas. 9 00:00:41,045 --> 00:00:47,104 As I get down into the model, the cubes you see represent the roles we play 10 00:00:47,104 --> 00:00:48,810 It's important to remember that, that they represent 11 00:00:48,810 --> 00:00:54,252 like the whole person just representing certain things that - certain roles that each of us take on. 12 00:00:57,346 --> 00:01:01,027 Reality is vastly more complex than the model I present here, 13 00:01:01,027 --> 00:01:10,085 so this is just a little attempt to just try to get an understanding of MOOCs 14 00:01:10,085 --> 00:01:15,178 with a subset of the reality that is a cMOOC. 15 00:01:16,619 --> 00:01:19,972 This model - this conceptual model certainly derives 16 00:01:19,972 --> 00:01:23,890 the work of George Siemens and Steven Downes 17 00:01:24,220 --> 00:01:31,530 who were the people who made the first MOOC - or developed the idea of MOOCs 18 00:01:31,530 --> 00:01:40,403 and as you can see from the two tweets above, at the top of the screen, 19 00:01:43,183 --> 00:01:46,731 George Siemens certainly is not opposed to the idea 20 00:01:48,151 --> 00:01:54,347 of viewing the networks that are created in MOOCs as similar to networks of neurons 21 00:01:54,347 --> 00:02:02,203 and Stephen Downes has explicitly said that he was thinking of neural networks 22 00:02:02,203 --> 00:02:04,630 when he was developing MOOCs. 23 00:02:04,630 --> 00:02:08,912 So, with those caveats, let's get started. 24 00:02:09,807 --> 00:02:13,797 So this is an overview, in the background here, of MIT. 25 00:02:13,797 --> 00:02:19,959 Sorry, Cambridge from the left, Boston on the right, Charles River over here, 26 00:02:19,959 --> 00:02:23,664 and MIT is just under that - those white dots. 27 00:02:23,664 --> 00:02:25,638 So, let's go and take a look. 28 00:02:28,168 --> 00:02:32,328 So, here I have the artifacts that have been created by the MOOC, 29 00:02:32,545 --> 00:02:34,738 some of them again, right, not all of them. 30 00:02:34,738 --> 00:02:39,447 Here I have sort of the cloud of us, of the participants in the MOOC, 31 00:02:39,447 --> 00:02:48,274 again, representing our roles as MOOC participants, not the entirety of our entity. 32 00:02:50,101 --> 00:02:59,092 And then down here these dots represent people at MIT. 33 00:02:59,092 --> 00:03:00,843 So, this is the Media Lab, 34 00:03:00,843 --> 00:03:03,373 this is Mitch Resnick's group here, 35 00:03:03,373 --> 00:03:05,826 these are other groups, other buildings at MIT 36 00:03:05,826 --> 00:03:10,894 and again, right, this is just a small set, subset of reality. 37 00:03:10,894 --> 00:03:14,761 There are literally, you know, hundreds of these groups at MIT, 38 00:03:14,761 --> 00:03:23,832 thousands of students at MIT, it's just one university in dozens of universities in Boston and Cambridge. 39 00:03:28,223 --> 00:03:34,142 So Mitch and his group developed LCL, and 40 00:03:34,702 --> 00:03:38,592 -- let me just turn on something here for a second -- 41 00:03:40,534 --> 00:03:48,839 and the lines here represent exchange of information between people. 42 00:03:48,839 --> 00:03:57,918 And obviously, Mitch is exchanging lots of information with his own team, as they are with him, 43 00:03:57,918 --> 00:04:04,391 and Mitch is also exchanging information with other groups at MIT, 44 00:04:04,391 --> 00:04:06,447 people leading other groups at MIT, 45 00:04:06,447 --> 00:04:09,207 and, obviously, the administration at MIT. 46 00:04:13,607 --> 00:04:18,780 So there's work related to LCL going on at this level, sort of you know, 47 00:04:18,780 --> 00:04:22,975 making the course happen and providing the resources for it. 48 00:04:22,975 --> 00:04:27,203 I'm not going to focus too much on that, but just want to sort of start there. 49 00:04:30,921 --> 00:04:34,261 And I'm going to turn the edges off for a bit. 50 00:04:34,261 --> 00:04:41,211 So we all start off, as we begin the MOOC with this, with this sort of cloud of us -- 51 00:04:42,455 --> 00:04:48,151 we are obviously from all over the world, but through the internet, we sort of are connect-- 52 00:04:48,151 --> 00:04:54,078 have gathered here over MIT and the Media Lab to be part of this MOOC, 53 00:04:54,078 --> 00:04:58,254 but at the start of the MOOC, we're very disconnected, right? 54 00:04:58,254 --> 00:05:01,938 it's just a bunch of us who've shown up for this experience. 55 00:05:06,757 --> 00:05:12,311 And, you know, we all go to the web site and we read about it, and we listen to Mitch, 56 00:05:12,311 --> 00:05:16,922 and we get a sense of what we're in for and we can connect to resources 57 00:05:16,922 --> 00:05:21,486 that Mitch and his team have put up to get it started. 58 00:05:22,203 --> 00:05:25,923 Again, at this point, there are very few connections between people. 59 00:05:29,953 --> 00:05:38,176 And, as we join the Google+ community, and start blogging about it and tweeting about it, 60 00:05:38,176 --> 00:05:48,158 we start making links between ourselves -- up here -- 61 00:05:49,130 --> 00:05:53,318 And then the course gets started. 62 00:05:53,577 --> 00:05:58,949 I've represented that as this first lecture, a presentation that Mitch did, 63 00:06:01,659 --> 00:06:07,867 and it sends out a lot of information to all of us, right? 64 00:06:07,867 --> 00:06:09,386 to all participating in the group. 65 00:06:09,386 --> 00:06:13,523 Now obviously, his - Mitch and his team are also paying close attention 66 00:06:13,523 --> 00:06:20,911 to this stream of information coming out of that first presentation. 67 00:06:27,896 --> 00:06:35,445 And, associated with the video presentation are readings for each of these...for each of the weeks 68 00:06:39,305 --> 00:06:43,093 and - well I think that's all I wanted to say here. 69 00:06:46,668 --> 00:06:52,478 And immediately after, or even before, that first presentation 70 00:06:52,478 --> 00:06:55,806 people were starting to tweet, were starting to add to the ... 71 00:07:03,583 --> 00:07:08,932 ... the main Google+ group and were also starting 72 00:07:08,932 --> 00:07:12,787 to get to know the people in our own little groups 73 00:07:12,797 --> 00:07:16,637 and posting there, and some of us are 74 00:07:16,637 --> 00:07:21,832 starting to blog about LCL. 75 00:07:25,661 --> 00:07:28,177 Right? Lots of us writing blogs, 76 00:07:28,177 --> 00:07:29,661 or some of us writing blogs, so there's 77 00:07:29,661 --> 00:07:33,017 this information that starts really flowing rapidly. 78 00:07:35,012 --> 00:07:40,274 And, as we do that we start to form connections here. 79 00:07:41,870 --> 00:07:44,096 And if I did this again I would have these connections 80 00:07:44,096 --> 00:07:48,551 gradually thicken and intensify, but I was working out 81 00:07:48,551 --> 00:07:51,964 these ideas as I made the model, so we have 82 00:07:51,964 --> 00:07:59,293 the fully networked collection of us here. 83 00:08:02,459 --> 00:08:04,745 And, through these colored lines I'm just 84 00:08:04,745 --> 00:08:07,808 representing the information that we're exchanging 85 00:08:07,808 --> 00:08:10,826 via the Google+ group, on Twitter, 86 00:08:10,826 --> 00:08:13,846 via the blogs, and ... 87 00:08:16,763 --> 00:08:19,839 and that was after the first week. 88 00:08:19,839 --> 00:08:23,076 The second week, we get the lecture from the... 89 00:08:24,464 --> 00:08:26,754 the presentation [mumbles], 90 00:08:27,109 --> 00:08:33,366 and we're assigned to talk about a gear, 91 00:08:33,366 --> 00:08:38,740 learning gear from our childhood based on Papert's (?) writings. 92 00:08:38,740 --> 00:08:41,469 And we start posting, sharing information 93 00:08:41,469 --> 00:08:45,426 on our small LCL groups, and some of us 94 00:08:45,426 --> 00:08:46,975 on the big LCL group. 95 00:08:47,594 --> 00:08:51,050 And again, blogging about it and sharing the information in other ways. 96 00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:59,832 There is communication going between 97 00:08:59,832 --> 00:09:06,082 Mitch and the other LCL group moderators, 98 00:09:07,104 --> 00:09:10,322 between all of us here in the network cloud. 99 00:09:14,070 --> 00:09:22,216 So there's this flow of information from 100 00:09:22,216 --> 00:09:25,529 first Mitch and his team put it up here, 101 00:09:25,529 --> 00:09:27,746 and it comes out to us, 102 00:09:27,746 --> 00:09:31,836 we comment upon it, and sometimes directly talk 103 00:09:31,836 --> 00:09:34,340 with Mitch and his team. 104 00:09:35,233 --> 00:09:37,389 And mostly we're sending information out here 105 00:09:37,389 --> 00:09:45,437 to these streams, and sharing that way. 106 00:09:46,066 --> 00:09:48,497 Which, of course, Mitch and his team are watching 107 00:09:48,497 --> 00:09:51,745 what appears out in these various streams. 108 00:09:52,570 --> 00:09:54,596 There's a lot of information flowing around. 109 00:09:55,333 --> 00:09:57,990 And then, the third week was ... 110 00:10:02,146 --> 00:10:07,348 the Dale Dowerdy (?), and Buckly (?), 111 00:10:07,348 --> 00:10:12,309 and we were supposed to create scratch projects 112 00:10:12,309 --> 00:10:14,010 which many of us did. 113 00:10:14,010 --> 00:10:16,467 We shared those and learned from eachother. 114 00:10:18,556 --> 00:10:22,090 And the density of our network is increasing up here. 115 00:10:23,077 --> 00:10:27,352 And then the fourth week, it was the 116 00:10:27,352 --> 00:10:31,760 infamous Alan Kay-dominated lecture. 117 00:10:33,970 --> 00:10:36,375 That certainly generated a lot of, 118 00:10:37,942 --> 00:10:40,382 a lot of feedback. 119 00:10:41,798 --> 00:10:43,986 Mostly, at least most of what I saw, 120 00:10:43,986 --> 00:10:45,609 was on the LCL main group. 121 00:10:49,319 --> 00:10:51,454 Our assignment was to work with 122 00:10:54,294 --> 00:10:55,951 the drawing program... 123 00:10:56,947 --> 00:10:59,189 whose name is escaping me right now. 124 00:11:00,132 --> 00:11:01,711 Oh...anyway. 125 00:11:03,624 --> 00:11:07,110 Obviously dozens and dozens, 126 00:11:07,110 --> 00:11:10,357 if not hundreds of these programs were created, 127 00:11:10,357 --> 00:11:11,644 and I've just shown two here. 128 00:11:18,708 --> 00:11:22,264 And then, the last week's lecture on 129 00:11:22,264 --> 00:11:27,838 open learning, again generating more artifacts, 130 00:11:27,838 --> 00:11:29,918 stream of more artifacts, 131 00:11:29,918 --> 00:11:34,440 some of us working with the stack exchange 132 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:38,162 and some of us offering courses and hangouts, et cetera. 133 00:11:38,162 --> 00:11:40,909 And again there were lots more than 134 00:11:40,909 --> 00:11:42,683 I'm showing here. 135 00:11:42,683 --> 00:11:46,360 And as the course continues we will be 136 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:48,509 producing more artifacts. 137 00:11:50,757 --> 00:11:52,754 And as I've said before, 138 00:11:54,364 --> 00:12:00,371 Mitch and his team are watching all of this happen. 139 00:12:03,334 --> 00:12:04,770 They're probably not looking at 140 00:12:04,770 --> 00:12:09,412 every single scratch project put up on 141 00:12:09,412 --> 00:12:13,270 the scratch website, or every single 142 00:12:13,270 --> 00:12:16,644 sub-group on Google+, but they're 143 00:12:16,644 --> 00:12:19,121 keeping an eye on things and sortof 144 00:12:19,121 --> 00:12:22,835 trying to understand how this is all developing. 145 00:12:25,452 --> 00:12:28,138 And of course, that gets fed back to us, 146 00:12:28,138 --> 00:12:33,729 in the form of, you know, 147 00:12:33,729 --> 00:12:38,334 upcoming lectures where they share what they've seen. 148 00:12:38,334 --> 00:12:44,587 And the chat, which is becoming a part 149 00:12:44,587 --> 00:12:48,824 of each presentation, and just direct communication 150 00:12:50,644 --> 00:12:53,975 back and forth with us, all of us or some of us. 151 00:12:56,772 --> 00:12:59,069 And so we have this, we have this 152 00:12:59,069 --> 00:13:02,704 network that we've built very quickly, 153 00:13:04,384 --> 00:13:13,830 which is doing something, maybe. 154 00:13:15,144 --> 00:13:17,172 Exactly what is not clear to me, 155 00:13:17,172 --> 00:13:19,855 since we're certainly producing a lot of information. 156 00:13:21,836 --> 00:13:24,207 I guess the question I have is, 157 00:13:24,207 --> 00:13:26,985 what are the potentials here? 158 00:13:26,985 --> 00:13:29,776 What emergent properties might this have, I don't know, 159 00:13:29,776 --> 00:13:33,965 but in a sense there are interesting possibilities. 160 00:13:40,034 --> 00:13:43,677 I think, we know that most of the world 161 00:13:43,677 --> 00:13:45,638 is going to be living in cities within 162 00:13:45,638 --> 00:13:49,237 a hundred years, and cities are... 163 00:13:50,609 --> 00:13:52,955 we're going to have to get a lot smarter 164 00:13:52,955 --> 00:13:57,048 about how we run our cities. 165 00:13:59,865 --> 00:14:01,681 There's in fact a whole movement with the 166 00:14:01,681 --> 00:14:03,563 urban studies community called 167 00:14:03,563 --> 00:14:05,201 "Smarter Cities" ... 168 00:14:06,568 --> 00:14:10,373 and I think part of the emergent properties 169 00:14:10,373 --> 00:14:13,197 that are possible with cMOOCs 170 00:14:14,259 --> 00:14:17,767 is we're sort of training a lot of us 171 00:14:17,767 --> 00:14:20,236 to work in these networks 172 00:14:21,456 --> 00:14:23,907 that can be developed very quickly 173 00:14:23,907 --> 00:14:26,355 with the current tools of the internet, 174 00:14:26,355 --> 00:14:28,397 which I assume will become even easier 175 00:14:28,397 --> 00:14:30,055 to build in the future, 176 00:14:30,865 --> 00:14:35,105 and so the cMOOC experience is, in a way, 177 00:14:35,114 --> 00:14:39,264 sort of training us to be better at 178 00:14:39,264 --> 00:14:44,211 running our communities in the future, 179 00:14:44,211 --> 00:14:45,975 making our communities much smarter. 180 00:14:46,693 --> 00:14:49,150 So that's, that's where I am with this. 181 00:14:49,150 --> 00:14:50,560 I would love feedback. 182 00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:52,813 I will post the model online, 183 00:14:52,813 --> 00:14:54,816 so that anybody who wants it can download it. 184 00:14:54,816 --> 00:14:59,203 And, again, this is just very experimental. 185 00:14:59,203 --> 00:15:01,345 Just playing around with ideas. 186 00:15:01,345 --> 00:15:02,834 So. Thanks! 187 00:15:02,834 --> 00:15:04,838 Thanks for watching.