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week one - MOOC - Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum

Millionaire's walk at Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula 
near Melbourne - Summer 2012

I have recently come back from a Xmas holiday spent in a stunning spot as shown in the pic to join - Week one of the MOOC - Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum - organised by Open University in the UK. I am curious to see how they approach this, and am looking for some fresh ideas.

One big question looms for me. Will this course have anything different about learning design compared to what we did in 2008 with Flexible Learning and Facilitating Online - in the pre-MOOC era before the name of Moocs and interacting with large numbers of participants became fashionable?

My goals this week are to:
  • Engage in all the activities - my introduction and initial interest in a design project has been conveyed on writing this.
  • Explore the study circles with the intention of joining a project group.
  • Find a definition of learning design that resonates.
I have decided to join a project with Ellie Brewster (Dr Sharon Collingwood) exploring learning design for creating presence in virtual worlds using open resources and mobile devices.Peter Miller's tip about Lumiya for android devices is a goodie so I will look into that so I can play on my eepad.

Day Five
I had a refresher in Second Life today and rejuvenated Branwen Trewellion - she now has a new haircut. For some reason, I found it more challenging to change the appearance of my avatar and to move her around. It looks like there have been some changes in SL since I was last there. I went to Koru (NMIT's space) and made it my homepage. Before that I encountered some strangers and one was attacking an avatar and there was lots of swearing so I felt the need to get out of the area quickly so went to a familiar space - Koru. However, once there, it felt quite lonely as no-one was around. Psychologically the beauty of a virtual world is the presence of others to interact with in a meaningful way, and I felt this need acutely when I was exploring today.  Next time I will take a pic to put on here. I want to explore OpenSim next and some of the other virtual worlds platforms being mentioned, e.g., Cloud party and Twinity.

A big issue for me is accessibility for students when using virtual worlds so if they can use their mobile devices - i or android phones, e or ipads and notebooks that would be fabulous.  As Sharon has mentioned orientation to the environment is key to success but it does take up a lot of time. I have been on the mind map and added some initial ideas. Next up the readings which I hope to enjoy with my feet up reading on the eepad....my back is killing me at the mo so I cant do much else. So in between hanging upside down and visiting the physio the Mooc (and a pile of library books, of course) is keeping me occupied.

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