NRC01PL...anti-climactic ending?

It's been a few weeks since I wrote anything about the NRC01PL cMOOC that was running last month, and that I caught up a bit on and wrote a few posts about.  The final week of the course was labelled applications and extension, but I didn't see any content for the course posted.  Not that one necessarily needs content (I think the Rhizo MOOCs showed that), however you do need something.

This got me to thinking, and more specifically about Terry Anderson and his interaction equivalency theorem, which...

In a nutshell the theory posits that if any one of student-student, student-teacher or student-content interaction is of a high quality, the other two can be reduced or even eliminated without impairing the learning experience–thus creating means of developing and delivering education that is cost affordable for all of us.

Peer-to-Peer interaction was a bit problematic for NRC01PL from the start. It seemed that gRSShopper didn't really work, and I only got a few blog posts about NRC01PL from people that I already follow (such as Jenny Mackness's blog for example), so the student-student interaction was a bit of an issue.  While I know Stephen (sort of) it's not like we'd create an impromptu hangout to discuss these things, and of course the final week fizzled in terms of content.  So...where does this leave us with learning, and (more importantly?) the community?

Part of me is wondering if the secret sauce in MOOCs is the community developed in the course.  The content is a fine starting point, but as we know content gets old and out of date.  Community on the other hand - while members of the community may cycle in and out, the community exists and provides for a place for continuous learning to happen.  I do wonder if MOOCs are just the soft shell to introduce us to others, and to a community, to sustain our learning beyond the confines of the specific MOOC.

Thoughts?

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