Blogging on Blogs

Nate

• Questions: From the author's statement of "registered users" I thought there would be some students taking this course for college credit.  I also assumed the creators of the MOOC would have some way to regulate the comments being made, by regulate, I mean delete if necessary. The courses in question, "Forums for a Future" and "Arts and Humanities: What Does It Mean To Live Well?", seem like they have the potential to bring up some potentially controversial topics and although an exciting discussion could be informative, it would need to be moderated. 
• Nate's Future Teaching: I've never experienced an educational application of reddit but with proper guidance, I can see how it would be helpful in fostering student-to-student communication.
• My Future Teaching: While reading this article, I kept thinking about how generous these instructors were. They were willing to offer up their course, without direct compensation, to as many people who were interested. Yes, they were getting paid to teach the "registered" users but I imagine their would be a significant amount of time spent reading and giving feedback to those students who took it out of their own interest. I can't say if I'd ever be able or willing to offer something like this to the general public, but it is something to admire. 

Jon

• Question: Maybe this would mean longer hours of operation for computer clusters or fewer assignments scheduled over weekends to ensure students had ample opportunity to complete their assignments. I also wondered how this would affect coffee shops and other establishments offering fee internet to their patrons.
• Our Future Teaching: I liked Jon's statement regarding how this loss of net neutrality would make the differences of financial states of our students more extreme. Instructors already have to keep cost top of mind when assigning required course materials, this would make that cost even more extreme. I would hope that students would be offered some sort of additional financial aid to meet the monetary demands of accessing valuable sites in the event this does occur. 

Jessie

• Question: I think your concern about the capacity of an automated computer software to help students develop necessary skills is valid. When I read this, I too was wonder what that would look like and how it could give meaningful feedback to each student. Students make different error and have different levels of proficiency in all areas of a course. How can software be created to address each and every possible issue? Or maybe there would a more standardized form of feedback for those misconceptions or errors we might predict and then the more obscure problems would be dealt with by the actual course instructor. Maybe seeing this in real time would make us believers, maybe.
• Our Future Teaching: Again, I agree with your points Jesse. I would say MOOCs are still relatively new in the grand scheme of education and the long term effects are still TBD. With more evidence (I admit I'm not well versed in the world of MOOCs so maybe it's already out there) I might have stronger feelings either way. I can say that from my own experience with MOOCs, they do require amply motivation to succeed, not unlike traditional instruction.