Should MOOC students be grouped?

By Gabi Witthaus. I am currently participating in the Carpe Diem MOOC offered by the Swinburne University of Technology, under Gilly Salmon’s leadership. Although I’ve enrolled in many MOOCs before (going right back to CCK08 by Siemens, Downes and Cormier), this is the first time I’ve participated in one with more than a passing flutter of activity. To use Downes’ metaphor, I’m ’reading’ this MOOC as if it were a book to be consumed from cover to cover, not dipping into it as if it were a newspaper.
One of the reasons for my atypical (atypical for me and for MOOC participants in general) engagement with this MOOC may be my strong motivation to get something out of it: the MOOC is about learning design, and I have a specific course in mind that I want to design. More...