One more MOOC down - xMOOC experince grows


One more MOOC is done! A coursera xMOOC to be more precise called Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society with Karl Ulrich from UPenn.

For this course I took the "auditor" approach to participating in the course. I did listen or view (or listen and view) all the lectures, and I did poke around the assignments, but never bothered to submit any of them.  I did enjoy Karl Ulrich's presentations, so for me the course was more like a series of related TED videos, and not specifically a course. The assignments, I must admit, were intriguing, but the combination of the level of my interest in the subject matter, coupled with the peer review and (lack of) accreditation accreditation made it not worth my while to go for that certificate of completion.

Now, if I had more spare time, I may have cared a bit more to create some artefact based on this course, but given that I don't have a ton of time, and that the assignments are peer reviewed (and that there seems to be no real mentorship from a subject expert), the certificate of completion doesn't really act as a motivator.  Certificates are nice, but as the fellow participant says bellow "I don't need no stinkin' certificate" ;-)  So, if you don't need the certificate, and you feel that you are getting what you need from viewing the lectures, why participate in this whole production and peer review exercise? The fact that the seemed interesting wasn't reason enough for me to motivate me to invest time in them :-)

I must say, that in addition to the professor, the non-graded end-of-course contest of creating a certificate of completion for the course was pretty interesting.  I wasn't super enthusiastic about some of the design, but this tote bag is pretty cool! It's nice to see people thinking outside the box :-)



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