Presentation for ALT-C 2016

1. Developing flexible open courses
(“cMOOCs”) with international
collaborators
Sarah Honeychurch @NomadWarMachine
Maha Bail @Bali_Maha
Kevin Hodgson @Dogtrax

2. Who we are
Sarah: Learning technologist and philosophy GTA at the University of Glasgow,
Hybrid Pedagogy Editor
Maha: Associate Professor of Practice at the American University of Cairo,
International Director of Digital Pedagogy Lab
Kevin: 6th grade teacher, outreach co-director Western Mass Writing Project.
All met during #rhizo14, a sort of cMOOC facilitated by Dave Cormier

3. What is a cMOOC?
Connectivist
Massive
Open
Online
Course/community

4. Platforms
Twitter
Facebook
G+
Wordpress
P2PU
Participants’ blogs
flickr photo by Leonorah Beverly shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

5. Our experiences
• Digital Writing Month
• CLMOOC
• Rhizomatic learning: the community is the curriculum
Why we decided to facilitate DigiWriMo:
• Believe in the principles behind Hybrid Pedagogy
• Love the community around #DigPed
• Welcomed the opportunity to create a more diverse conversation

6. Rhizomatic learning MOOC
#Rhizo14
What happens when we approach a learning experience and we don’t know what
we are going to learn? Where each student can learn something a little bit
different – together? If we decide that important learning is more like being a
parent, or being a cook, and less like knowing all the counties in England in 1450?
What if we decided to trust the idea that people can come together to learn given
the availability of an abundance of perspective, of information and of connection?
https://courses.p2pu.org/en/courses/882/rhizomatic-learning-the-community-is-
the-curriculum/ Dave Cormier
Image credit Clarissa Bezerra

7. Themes
Week 1 - Cheating as Learning (Jan 14-21)
Week 2 - Enforcing Independence (Jan 21-28)
Week 3 - Embracing Uncertainty (Jan 28-Feb 4)
Week 4 - Is Books Making Us Stupid? (Feb 4-Feb 11)
Week 5 - Community As Curriculum (Feb 11-Feb 18)
Week 6 - Planned Obsolescence (Feb 18-?)

8. What happened next?
Week 7 - The Lunatics are taking over the Asylum (Feb 25 - Mar 4)
Week 8 - Demobbing Soldiers (Mar 4-9)
Week 9 - Why do We Need Lurkers? (Marc 11-18)
Week 10 - Creativity: the art of thriving in arid environments (Mar 22 - 30)
Week 11 - Powerful thoughts (Mar 31 - Apr 7)
Week 12 1/2 MOOC Missionaries (April 10 - ?)

9. Rhizomatic learning MOOC
#Rhizo15
“Rhizomatic learning … posits a learning experience where
the curriculum of the course is the people that are in it. Given access to an
abundance of content, how can we design a learning experience that celebrates
complexity and creativity, rather than an artificial standard of knowing? A course
experience where each student is encouraged to map their own learning?”
http://rhizomatic.net/
Image credit Wendy Taleo

10. Themes
Week 1: Learning Subjectives – designing for when you don’t know where you’re
going
Week 2: Learning is not a counting noun… so what should we count?
Week 3: The myth of content
Week 4 – Can/should we get rid of the idea of ‘dave’? How do we teach
rhizomatically?
Week 5: Is community learning an invasive species?
Week 6 – Rhizomatic learning, a practical guide

11. Digital Writing Month
#DigiWriMo A 30-day adventure through the world of digital narrative & art
Free, Open, Online
2012, 2014, 2015
Hybrid Pedagogy journal
Facilitated in 2015 by
Maha Bali, Sarah Honeychurch and Kevin Hodgson

12. What is Digital Writing Month?
“invites participants from all over the world to take risks, to play and to explore
creative forms of expression: particularly as afforded by the digital, which quite
often, is not just textual or individual.”
http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/announcements/digital-writing-month-2015/
Photo, “Late Autumn Leaf“, by Mirai Takahashi and licensed CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

13. DigiWriMo 2015 Themes
• Writing: The Shifting Notions of Writing
• Visual: Using our Lens to Compose
• Audio: The Story of Sound and Waves
• Transmedia: Pushing into the Edges of Stories
Image credit: Kevin Hodgson

14. Who Contributed? Who Participated?
http://www.digitalwritingmonth.com/roster/

15. Facilitation
Lead facilitator each week (Maha weeks 1&4, Kevin week 2, Sarah week 3)
• Responsible for soliciting contributions and publishing to Wordpress prior to event
starting
• Heralding each publication and cheerleading during the week
• Writing an introductory piece for our week
Platform admin
• Twitter account: Maha
• Facebook page: Sarah
• G+ community: Kevin
• Mailchimp: Maha
• TAGS: Sarah
All tweeted to #DigiWriMo from personal accounts
Image credit: Sarah Honeychurch

16. Collaborative tools
Planning
• Twitter/ Twitter DM
• Email
• Slack
• Google Docs
• Google Slides
Delivery
• Google Docs
• Google Slides
• Hackpad
• Hypothes.is
• Vialogues
Image credit: Sarah Honeychurch

17. Connected Learning MOOC
#CLMOOC A four week exploration of the principles and practices
of connected learning.
Free, Open, Online
2013, 2014, 2015
Facilitated by the National Writing Project and Educator Innovator
2016
Facilitated by a team of volunteers
Image credit: Ron Leunissen

18. What is CLMOOC?
“Connected Learning is a research and design-based approach to education. It is
based on the learning principles of being interest-powered, peer-supported, and
academically-oriented. It is based on the design principles of being production-
centered, openly-networked, and shared purpose. And it espouses core values of
equity, social connection, and full participation.”
http://clmooc.com/2016/welcome-to-clmooc-2016/
Image credit: National Writing Project

19. Designing for Possibilities: Connected Learning
Learning Principles
1. Interest-powered
2. Peer-supported
3. Academically oriented
Design Principles
1. Production-centered
2. Openly networked
3. Shared purpose
Core Values
1. Equity
2. Social Connection
3. Full Participation

20. Make Cycles
Cultivating Connections
Reciprocating Connections
Purposive Pause
Celebrating Connections
Image credit: Ron Leunissen

21. Who facilitated?
1. Sarah & Sheri
2. Helen & Susan
2.5. Jeffrey & Charlene
3. Allie & Scott
Anna, Joe, Karen, Kevin
Image credit: Sarah Honeychurch (original artwork by Susan Watson)

22. Facilitation
Make Cycle Facilitators
Co-wrote 2 newsletters - published Sunday and Friday
ran Google Hangout “Make with me” (Tuesday, 4pm Pacific time)
ran Twitter chat (Thursday, 4pm Pacific time)
Karen
Did everything else (published to Wordpress, sent out newsletters, kept us all to
schedule, ran the official Twitter account, kept the Make Bank up to date)
Daily Connect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OegcvtyXX7U&feature=youtu.be

23. Emergent Projects (or, Expecting the Unexpected)

24. More Emergence

25. Google Maps
CLMOOC 15 CLMOOC 16

26. Network Visualisation
TAGS Explorer (Martin Hawksey)

27. RhizoRadio: Mr X loses his battle for objectivity
Tania’s blog post
Crowdsourced radio play
Mixed in Audacity by Kevin
Uploaded to Soundcloud

28. Collaborative music
https://soundcloud.com/dogtrax/rhizo15-we-find-our-way-through?in=nomad-war-machine/sets/rhizomes
https://soundcloud.com/dogtrax/rhizomatic-blues?in=nomad-war-machine/sets/rhizomes

29. Story
Jumpers
One story.
26 authors
from across
the world
Link to map by Kevin Hodgson: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=zYeEwV7o_qjg.kXIXpMKBKTh4

30. ThingLink by Wendy Taleo https://www.thinglink.com/scene/727708830464475138

31. Postcard project
Google Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfXy0U0PpfpkxybWAfZ2-rez46P1T3wnvKR3BwK6AoXsv3gjg/viewform

32. Image credits: Sarah Honeychurch

33. CLMOOC 14
Constellation Chart: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/547358178266841090
Blog Post about it: http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/2014/07/16/reinventing-the-night-a-
star-chartconstellation-collaboration/
Reflections on the Theme of Light: http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/6141
flickr photo by Alison-Chan shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

34. Other collaborations
Elfje (Little 11) poems for DigiWriMo
Rhizo 15 Sestina
Capstone Poems for CLMOOC
CLMOOC Identity Shattering in Six Words
Open learning recipe from rhizo15
Hypothes.is annotation flash mob
Vialogues

35. Comparisons
Diversity versus spontaneity?
Image credit: Sarah Honeychurch
CLMOOC Sync Twitter chat
and Google
Hangouts
2 x newsletters
per Make Cycle
Facilitator-led
creative
activities
Large team of
facilitators
DigiWriMo No official sync 4-5 posts
commissioned
per week
Contributor-led
activities
Small team of
facilitators, ~20
contributors
Rhizoxx Google Hangouts
(rhizo14)
None (rhizo15)
Short video &
blog post by
Dave each
week
Spontaneous
participant
activities only
Dave

36. Challenges
“Planning for allowing for the unexpected is the
underlying theme of CLMOOC, really.” Kevin
flickr photo by Steve took it shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

37. Balance and diversity of voices
1. Whose voices get heard/privileged? Focused on nationality
and race
2. Inclusion is elusive but we need to continue to make
conscious choices to target for inclusion and not tokenize
3. Efforts to include people on THEIR OWN terms
Article: Digital Writing Month: Striving for Inclusion in Open Online Learning
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/digiwrimo15/61207
http://blog.mahabali.me/blog/pedagogy/critical-pedagogy/reproducing-marginality/
flickr photo by Nick Kenrick shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

38. Whom Do We (Inevitably/Unintentionally) Exclude?
1. Language (English and discourses of open learning)
2. Shy/vulnerable (e.g. uncomfortable with own work being remixed)
3. Less confident/interested in making/artistic endeavors
4. Multimodality privileges
a. Able-bodied individuals (Yin Wah Kreher posted on accessibility in
DWM)
b. People with good internet and software access/infrastructure
c. People with digital literacies already (even as course develops them)
5. Every "we" is a "not them" (Dave Cormier) - inevitable in community
flickr photo by niksin shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

39. Unintentional exclusion
"there will always, always, be someone we missed;
an entire category of someones we missed. But we
also do not want to reduce people to their
categories."
- Maha Bali on Prof Hacker
flickr photo by Andrea Kirkby shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

40. Structure versus “spontaneous creative riffing”*
How do you find the correct balance?
Too much structure stifles spontaneity
Too little structure can leave participants feeling lost
Try to provide different versions of activities (dip in/dive in)?
How do you cope when the participants go rogue?
* http://cogdogblog.com/2016/05/flag-hands/
flickr photo by CHOLKE shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

41. The challenge of multiple time zones
• When do you schedule synchronous activities?
• When do you release announcements?
• How do you manage a crisis that happens during your down time?
Image credit: Sarah Honeychurch

42. Cognitive overload
Of participants
Of facilitators
The importance of backchannels
Purposive Pauses
FOMO/JOMO
Orient, declare, network, cluster, focus
http://www.nomadwarmachine.co.uk/2015/05/04/time-to-cluster/

43. What happens next?
Decision to nurture our CLMOOC community
#CLMOOC, Facebook, G+
Hybrid Pedagogy (Digital Pedagogy Lab) hand over DigiWriMo
CLMOOC takes over DigiWriMo 16 with Mia Zamora (Kean University)

44. Questions
Image credit: Sarah Honeychurch