OLDS MOOC week 2 convergence session
Channel: OLDS MOOC
Date: 2013-01-22

Notes here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YGq1pPNELJGjFe8OmrDc3FMqGxGKArPE8xjYNVribic/edit

Week 2 Convergence (22/1/13)
Hosts: Josh, Yishay, Sheila, Rose, Penny, Will, Rebecca
Intros
Sheila -- it's been a challenging week. I have found the daily summary is very useful as I've had problems with Google hangouts and Groups. Mindmaps are a terrific resource. We can't do everything we want because of time factors. Different paths are available.
Penny -- plenty of time to spend on the MOOC. I'm an experienced secondary school teacher. I've really enjoyed the different web tools and am still trying to pin down learning design. 
Will -- project about open and socially editable video. Interested in design science to link to management ideas.
What have you noticed about people's attempts to contextualise their projects?
Yishay -- people are coming to terms with new terminology and the issue of dealing with importance of context. Challenge in week 1 was navigating MOOC; week 2 is about complexity of content. Some good postings going up. Interesting to look at work people are doing in the projects -- compared to designing the MOOC itself. Differences in tech ability, time, knowledge, etc. Typically you can come up with 2-3 personas. On MOOC we have people representing many, many more. 
Rose - wealth of discussion to tap into. How do we deal with context? How do we use ed tech better? The MOOC tools sensitise people to the implications of context. 
Yishay -- let's look at Will's project on screenshare [Cloudworks link here]
Will -- it's about editing music video.  Various qualities of video, mostly under CC. Choose CC in YouTube and you get the remix button. 
Yishay -- Will's, you have 4 personas. Was the exercise useful?
Will -- my personas were somewhere between people I know and fiction. Cloudworks is falling over and people are going outside it, which is not a bad thing. Hard to navigate. I'm hoping to find out more about design science. Video project is working out quite well and should complete. 
Rebecca -- questions from twitter. How can someone jump into the MOOC at this stage?
Will -- YouTube intro videos should help. And the convergence videos. 
Yishay -- limitations of Cloudworks acknowledged by MOOC designers hence the mashup approach. The team wanted a replicable, open platform. 
Josh -- personas in design of the MOOC were not used -- but ecology of resources framework used for week 2. Design of the MOOC has been highly distributed. The main design for week 2 is make sure there is enough content for people with time and for people to come back to much later. Designed to make people to think of their own contexts rather than provide a checklist for people to follow.
Yishay -- there are a range of design possibilities but they do overlap, but design must be centred around context. 
Is context used by book authors?
Rose -- probably, as not just technology that makes us think of context. All teaching incorporates context and takes it into account. But it is complex. MOOC is generating lots of practical ways people are taking context into account. 
Yishay to Will -- how will you teach your video editing course?
Will -- Clouds will continue, but I would like some examples. But learning is different in different cases. How do we gain acceptance of Creative Commons? Then specific YouTube editing skills -- screenshots might be fine.
 Penny -- I wanted a clear picture of a large connectivist MOOC. Lonely for the first week, Cloudworks doesn't give a sense of people. Needs a live stream of chit chat. Attempted to open this up a bit, hence started a Facebook group. When problems arise, don't complain about difficulty but get help from others. We can't possibility do everything on the MOOC.
Yishay -- how do we design for this massive, diverse audience? Is it a cMOOC, sMOOC? Is it a Coursera-type MOOC? All these are causing tensions. We imagined some people would dip in and out, some would plough through week by week, some ideally get a small project team together. Collaboration can't be scaled up to 1000 people. If you're late, it's up to you how you catch up -- everything is open and available. 
Rose -- design has to be a collaborative process -- learners and teachers/practitioners included -- otherwise it's just a designer's context, although MOOC might seem designer-centric. 
How are you evaluating the MOOC?
Yishay -- MOOC objectives were clearly defined. Have these caught on? Look at learning journals as we go along and then the end projects. Have people met their original objectives posted in week 1? There will be end of course surveys.
Rebecca -- retention and achievement shift in meaning in a MOOC. People were going to be light touch participants and still meet their objectives.