Interviewing the MOOC's participants

In this spring I conducted some online interviews with the participants of two open online courses as part of my thesis data. The interviewees varied in professional background and their extent of participation in open online courses. While they were all good users of social media and web 2.0 tools, the way and purposes they incorporated those tools in their professional activities and educational and learning practices were different. Most of them have been participating in more than two (M)OOCs with different level of engagement. In each course the level of activities and the requirements for participation however were also varied. In one course, which two interviewees came from, there was a need for more active participation and preparing some reflections and final digital and online projects which required more involvement in use of tools and technology to fulfil the requirement.   
I did interviews on Skype, GTalk and one by phone and I used some online tools like Pamela for recording.

The whole process of interviewing was challenging though; for arranging practical preparation and technical resources but, also inspiring to go through participants’ experiences and perceptions of such open online environments and their interactions with resources and people from different parts of the world, using many forms of technologies and tools in the process of learning and collaboration.

MOOC ( Massive Open Online Courses)

Started two weeks ago, I am participating in a massive online course: #PLENK2010: Personal Learning Environments, Networks, and Knowledge sponsored and organized by the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University. Stephen Downes and Rita Kop from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Learning and Collaborative technologies group, Dave Cormier from University of Prince Edward Island, and George Siemens (Connectivism Theory: a learning theory for digital age!) from TEKRI are course facilitators.  

It is based on connectivist approach and a great open learning environment which promotes collaboration with more tham a thousand of participants from all around the world exploring the nature of distributed networked knowledge and social learning by immersing in different social media and web 2.0 tools. 

The way it is run is absolutely great; it is less structured unlike other courses, #PLENK2010 is an unusual course which does not consist of a body of content participants are supposed to remember rather, the learning in the course results from the activities participants undertake, and will be different for each person.

In addition, this course is not conducted in a single place or environment. It is distributed across the web and  participants are expected to do activities taking place all over the internet using different social media such as Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, Moodle, delicious, discussion forums.... . Participants are asked to visit other people's web pages, and  to create their own. 

Everyday, all participants receive ' The Daily' consists of some readings, information regarding the course and the aggregated contents from participants' blogs and twitters. There are also live sessions mediated by Elluminate where the topic of the week is discussed with facilitators.