Week one of the ecosystems MOOC

I have now finished week 1 of my first MOOC:  Ecosystems (from the OU) and have survived, kept up and enjoyed it.  I was a bit concerned that interacting with the community might be overwhelming – however there was only one discussion ‘step’ (which is how the course is organized).  The task was to discuss the definition that we had been introduced to and as it has a simple and fairly linear organization, essentially what you get is the most recent comments, so although posts are put up in reply to others, it is not easy to see which posts are being replied to as if there is a lot of traffic they may be a long way down.  I was a little disappointed at the lack of a feel of the community.  I don’t know how many people are following the course or where they are from – it would have been good to know.  One of the features of MOOCs is that they tend to have a high drop out rate.  My colleague Doug Clow has written about the metaphor of  the ‘funnel of participation’; and as he says, such courses have a much higher drop out rate and in this paper he explores this steep drop-off in three different contexts.

Of course, one consequence of courses being free is that people can dip in and try to see whether or not they like the course, whether or not they can cope with the course and whether or not they have the time – with no penalties if they discover that they don’t. So is the Ecosystems course going to lose a lot of people?  In week 1 videos have been used quite a bit to explore and to illustrate the concept of an ecosystem – and for me that has worked well.  I was very engaged with the Wicken Fen example which is also within visiting distance for me – so may well take a trip.

Interestingly, Countryfile, a weekly BBC programme about various aspects of the countryside was discussing some of the early ecologists tonight such as Gilbert White, who carried out a detailed study of the natural history of Selbourne, through painstaking observations.  I have intended to visit his house which is now a museum and his garden and the combination of the programme and course has reminded me: so hope this will be a trip for 2014 - and I may also dig out his book.

So, looking forward to week 2.