Considering “Personal Learning MOOC” – aka. #NRC01PL

As part of the "The Artist as (Film School) Teacher" project, I intend (time permitting!) to take the Personal Learning MOOC offered by Stephen Downes starting February 22. While taking a course like this is personally interesting to me given my longstanding interest in connectivism and MOOCs, the particular insentive for this course is the focus on the "personal learning environment".

In the intro to the course, Downes writes:

Course objectives: participants will develop an appreciation of different models of online course delivery, ranging from the traditional LMS through connectivist MOOCs to potential future models of personal learning and performance support. (my emphasis)

This is a key as I see it in developing a distributed course for Nordic filmmakers. We are attempting to create a learning environment that not only will give filmmakers working as teachers the formal competence they require in order to teach at higher educational institutions, but more importantly provide filmmakers in 4 countries (and 8 film schools in 7 cities) with a peer network for ongoing discussions and support.

There are some premises to be considered:

  • Given the geographic and linguistic challenges involved, online technology is a necessary element.
    • Given the increasing requirements for formal qualifications imposed by European education bureacracies, some form of standardised outcomes are necessary
    • Given the vast gap between individual experiences and pedagogic competencies among the filmmakers teaching at the different schools, a focus on creating a personal (as opposed to personalized) learning environments as well as fostering the development of PLNs is key.
    • Given the lack of formal expertise in this area – film school pedagogy – the course will in large part have to rely on peer learning. To me, this is an advantage rather than a handicap, as I have previously elaborated on.

Structurally, the course will end up being a bit of a hybrid between a personalized and personal environment. We will design modules with pre-defined learning outcomes and leading to some form of assessment that yields standardised ECTS points. This may be easier if we start with some pre-determined "content" the particpants have to "master". On the other hand, the actual need is for an ongoing framework of peer support, where the participants can build their own personal learning environment.

Our challenge will be to marry the two. I don’t know if the Personal Learning MOOC will help me towards this goal, but even if it doesn’t I am sure it will provide interesting new insights and, hopefully, connections along the way.

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