I’ve just completed the second week of the “E-learning and Digital Cultures” MOOC, delivered using Coursera by staff from the School of Education.
One reason I took this course was just to experience a MOOC, and the sheer number of participants and their global spread doesn’t disappoint. The discussion boards are kept lively, although social spaces such as Twitter suffer a little from too much noise rather than not enough interest. It seems that the largest group represented are teachers and educators.
Week one looked at the idea of technological determinism, and asked to what extent does technology shape society. A number of short films from popular culture depicted the relationship we have with technology, presented as either desirable and utopian or negative and dystopian.
One clip, a short animation called Bendito Machine, portrayed a very negative impact of technological progress. The community had no control over the type of technology they were provided with – new devices would simply fall from the sky; they were put on a pedestal and worshipped briefly until they were scrapped, to be replaced with a newer version. This clip evoked some heated discussion; most thought that technological progress offers wonderful opportunities and is essential to our evolution.
The theme of utopian versus dystopian ideas continued in week two, but focused specifically on the future. Clips from two computer adverts presented a world enriched with a multitude of interactive devices to make our learning and understanding of the world much easier. It is a world where children can easily draw an object on their tablet for it to be translated into a 3D model and printed on a 3D printer. This wasn’t some kind of impossible fantasy, but a slightly improved version of what is possible now.
It isn’t quite within the remit of our team to develop e-learning materials, but the questions posed by the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC are relevant to all digital communications, and therefore relevant to us. I’m looking forward to the rest of the course