What If a Student's MOOC Assignment POs Someone?

What would happen if something a MOOC student submitted for an assignment offended someone not involved in the course? It's bound to happen sooner or later. Considering the global reach of a MOOC there could be a lot of blow back. Wouldn't it be a great idea to take a pedagogically proactive approach to the possibility?

I had such a terrific time taking my first MOOC earlier this year ("How to Change the World" read about the experience here) that I signed up for another one. The MOOC I'm currently enrolled in is called "Beyond Silicon Valley : Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies" led by Michael Goldberg at Case Western Reserve University. I am having as excellent an experience this time around. Beyond Silicon Valley is challenging, thought provoking, engaging and as with "How to Change the World" I'm learning incredibly useful information that has already paid off professionally in more ways than one.

One nice difference this time is that the course faculty are taking active part in the forum discussions. That provides an added sense of connection. On the down side, the assignments are assessed this time based solely upon word count and whether or not you submit the assignment on time. I found this out when I misread a due time (did "midnight" mean the start of the day or the end of the day?) and also when my assignments were scored instantaneously. I have to say that I miss the peer grading from my last MOOC; it wasn't always high quality, but it was interesting. And the opportunity to read and ponder other student assignments was enlightening and sometimes mind blowing.

As with my first MOOC, "Beyond Silicon Valley" asks the student to dig for answers and reflect on their implications for their own situation. But it goes beyond that with a midterm that asks the student to interview local entrepreneurs and write about their findings.

Herein approaches the sticky issue.

Some pretty sensitive stuff can come up when asking business owners about their company. Having interviewed people in a variety of professional settings for years, I know that even the most cautious interviewee let slip things they might prefer not be put in writing. A good interviewer can facilitate this happening. It then falls on the interviewer to employ wise judgement when writing up their story.

Having high journalistic standards (whether as a professional or student writer) is important. I suspect the vast majority of my peer students are not out to muck rake or hurt anyone. Hopefully they pay attention to how and what they write, and in sensitive situations perhaps run proposed text by the people they report on.

But do all students in a given class take such care? Perhaps more important for an educator to ask: Do students even know to think about this?

No, they all don't.

In a Coursera MOOC (both of my classes were by Coursera) the student signs an agreement not to distribute, copy, report or otherwise share anything written by another student without that student's express permission. This is good, and thus, should there be a leak of one student's material by another student, the source of responsibility and liability is pretty clear.

On the other hand, students also sign an agreement when they first sign up with Coursera  acknowledging they are aware that all their contributions will be readable by the university course staff and by Coursera personnel. In addition, the student agrees that Coursera may, at it's own discretion, use portions of student submissions. I can't remember the details, but basically the student agrees that Coursera has wide latitude in how it chooses to use student material. I have no problem with that. Coursera has the right to make that request in return for the educational service they are providing - for free. Until proven otherwise, I default to trusting Coursera not to abuse the situation.

Back to the stickiness.

Consider a scenario in which a student in a course such as "Beyond Silicon Valley"submits an assignment based upon an interview with a business entity. It's good. It's interesting. It's quality. As a result, someone on university or Coursera staff uses part or all of it for training or PR purposes. The business becomes offended for some unforeseeable reason.

The business may have assumed confidentiality, especially as this was a student assignment. The student may have not thought about the possibility that either a) what s/he wrote would bother anyone or that b) it would ever be seen outside the virtual course wall. The student may have not discussed the possibility of the the interview becoming public in whole or part. Yet Coursera has the right to use the student material. Everyone was acting in good faith. Nonetheless, the stuff hits the fan.

Who is responsible? Who is going to take the heat? Who is going to come out ok and who will be severely bruised?

It would be completely counterproductive for all concerned if this situation becomes bogged down in legal and bureaucratic wranglings. We're talking about education here folks; social change. Let's take the high road shall we and try to cut this off at the pass.

In a live or virtual classroom there is an opportunity for faculty to discuss issues of confidentiality, privacy, contractual agreements; implications of what you write, possible scenarios of how material can be used. Especially with regards to interviewing and how the material is written up. We shouldn't assume that intelligent well educated adults (as most MOOC students are) know all about this. Even if they do, the topic bears revisiting. It's good for faculty and students alike to remember that you can have all your facts and knowledge and entrepreneurial ducks in a row, yet if you step on the wrong person's toe you are toast.

Pedagogically, there is an important difference here between a traditional class and a MOOC class. The sense of distance inherent to a virtual environment can lead to increased complacency or denial of interpersonal communication landmines. Thus we have a challenge that needs to be addressed proactively.

Pedagogically we have a great opportunity.  MOOCs such as Coursera's want to change the face of education and benefit society by leveraging the power of the Internet. I'm all for it. In these early entrepreneurial stages of MOOC development, let's watch for these sticky issues and talk about them until we solve them.

Changing the World One MOOC at a Time

"How to Change the World" is packing a punch. This is the MOOC I signed up for a few weeks ago. On the one hand, I am impressed with what can be done in such a setting. On the other hand, I now recognize firsthand some of the unique challenges for MOOCs in the context of their original stated mission. Today, I'll focus on some of the positive highlights.

On my very first peer assessment activity (homework is evaluated by one's peers according to a rubric provided by the course instructor/staff) I read and assessed in order: an essay by someone in an affluent US suburb dealing with plastic waste, an essay by someone in rural India dealing with horrific industrial pollution and a kick you in the gut essay by someone from Syria. The Syrian conflict will never again be to me simply something awful and far way as seen on television. It took just one student's 3 - 4 paragraphs to reorient my perspective.

This was only the beginning of several weeks of reading and interacting with students from around the globe. What an incredible experience. What an incredible opportunity. I find myself dying to get to the end of the day so I can log in and read the discussion forums, student essays and the class Wiki as students delve into complex issues and how to take meaningful action from each of their unique perspectives.

Everything is optional in this class; in other words you watch as many of the lectures, interviews and videos as you like, do as much of the extensive reading as you like, do as many assignments as you like, etc. Staff monitor the Forums to ensure discussions don't devolve into polemics or grandstanding about topics unrelated to the course material. But this is not done in a heavy handed way, and thoughtfully presented controversial discussions are encouraged. Anonymity is allowable for each post; sometimes people choose to post anonymously, but surprisingly few do so.

Extreme poverty, Climate Change, Global Disease and Health - these comprised Weeks 2-4. Not lightweight stuff, and not simplified for general distribution. The nature of this (as with many bricks and mortar based courses) is that if you want to skim through it and pay partial attention you can do so. On the other hand, for those students who want to wrestle with the tough questions and the sometimes polarized approaches posited by leaders in these fields the resources are there. Just as you think you have heard something definitive from the President of the World Bank (interviewed for this class) about "what is", you hear from other experts in the Development field with years of boots on the ground who point out potential problems with his approach. Then, just in case you thought they had the last word, you click a link to hear speakers from the 2013 Social Good Summit who talk about what they are doing effectively.

And on it goes. Every week it is like this. The instructor of the course (Michael Roth, President of Wesleyan University) has done an outstanding job of bringing together a multiplicity of informed and contrasting viewpoints and information for participants in this MOOC. In terms of the amount and depth of content available, this class holds its own against many in-person undergraduate classes you might find yourself sitting in.

The theme of the course comes each week in three parts:
  

What Do We Know, Why Do We Care, What Can We Do. 

In other words, take all this, digest it, wrestle with it and apply it. Network with other students, build coalitions and collaborations, share experiences, ideas, strategies. Every homework assignment so far has had an option to write about (citing class sources of course!) actions you can take for yourself.

Right after we spent a week discussing climate issues and problems related to carbon footprints, and I was reminded yet again how flying lifts one's carbon footprint to astronomical heights I hopped a plane to another country. I find myself in one of the world's largest cities being frequently asked for spare change by people who no doubt fit the global definition of living in Extreme Poverty (earning less than $1.25/day).

Sitting comfortably on the Metro bundled up against the cold in a set of warm layers, I have to stop and think: how do I react to those quiet pleas? Do I fall back into habitual patterns of giving or not giving those spare coins that I don't really need and which, multiplied by the efforts of others could make meaningful difference? What have I learned in class that modifies how I decide to react? It's not simple at all. It's not.

The rubber hits the road in an impressive way when an Internet MOOC pushes you to reassess your everyday choices. For those of us living comfortably in developed countries this is the power of a MOOC. I'm  hearing the voices of my classmates from other countries, in other cultures, who, through engaging in this class with me, are reminding me that I, we, need to wake up.

Especially for those of us who love learning for learning's sake, it's so easy to read, learn, listen, discuss, and then fall back into doing what we've always done because it's convenient. That is a danger to be alert for when the class ends in a few weeks. That option isn't going to change the world.

What a MOOC, a Motivational Workshop and a Car Accident Taught Me

This morning there was a very bad traffic accident right outside my front door. Two large SUVs collided, from the look of things more than once. I heard a lengthy squealing of brakes followed by at least two explosive impacts. When I went to look, both of the SUVs were totaled, and one of them could only be entered through the back hatch. The only fortunate thing I could think of was that a fire station was located across the intersection and so help was on the scene within seconds.

I planned to write today about having signed up for a MOOC, and I still will, but what I want to discuss about it today has changed as a result of standing there watching people being carefully removed from a giant piece of  crumpled metal.

Sometimes things just seem to align and when "How to Change the World" came filtering through my Twitter Feed last week, I thought: "Perfect!" I have been writing about issues surrounding online education and MOOCs recently, not just in this blog, but in other venues including my column in ACM Inroads Magazine. There are such heated opinions in the computing community, yet how many of us have experienced a MOOC first hand? Not only that, this topic was perfect for me. Considering it is being taught by someone who is not only a faculty, but the President of Wesleyan University (Michael Roth), I figured this class was likely to be taken seriously.

As if that wasn't enough unexpected opportunity for the week, I was offered complimentary admission to one of those motivational workshops about figuring out how to ...well I wasn't sure exactly. That's why I said "one of those..." because I am fairly cynical about anyone  suggesting they have "the answer" to - whatever. But, I confess that I was just a bit curious, and it was in my backyard, so what the heck. Two days out of my life to investigate first hand what one of these things was all about. I believe deeply in holding onto a spirit of curiosity and inquisitiveness. Here was an opportunity to walk the talk.

Perhaps because I didn't read the syllabus carefully or perhaps I was tired by the time I got to it each night, or perhaps because the website wasn't as intuitive as it could have been, I went straight for the "How to Change the World" readings before listening to the lectures. As a result, it was a bit of a slog but after I moved on to the video lectures I realized that the readings were pretty darned good - provocative even. The video lectures were not lightweight either, sometimes sucking me in and sometimes glazing my eyes over. Once in a while I found myself wondering what could have been done differently?

I am going to suspend judgement on that until I have gone through a lot more of the course because I want to see what happens after we get past the historical/philosophical context setting that Week 1 was all about. Michael Roth is pretty darned interesting to listen to (imo) and he is clearly excited about this topic. It isn't something he usually teaches. I had a good time watching his enthusiastic facial expressions.

I signed this small-print page-long media release form for the motivational workshop, which means that my face and voice could very well be sprayed all over the internet in ways I have no control over, but the alternative was to sit in the back in the "media free" zone and never engage in conversation (everything, I mean everything, was recorded). So I signed the thing and sat in the second row. After all, what was the point of checking it out if I hid the whole time? So I'll just cross my fingers and hope that I don't someday find myself taken out of context online for someone else's marketing purposes. We often tell our students how important it is to stretch outside their comfort zones and I want to walk my talk.

For the sake of the privacy and confidentiality of everyone else in that workshop who agreed to go outside their comfort zone, I am not going to get too specific about what we said and did for two days as we explored this concept of finding out what we were meant to do in life (yeah, I know, it sounds over the top, but bear with me). However, one of the walk away messages I got from two exhausting days of intellectual and emotional mind stretching was that it is really important for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world to get off their butt and do something about it. And to not get pulled down by all the challenges.

One of the ways I got this message was in a side conversation I had with another workshop participant. It was near the end of the second day and I was tired. Darned tired. A woman came up to me and said she had two girls who had taken part in code.org activities and wanted to know what to do next. I found myself starting to explain all the challenges that face getting more students, especially girls, into the computing pipeline. After a few minutes she looked at me in dismay and said that I made it sound so hard that she was discouraged and just wanted to give up on the whole thing.

I could have kicked myself around the room 3 times. I was so annoyed at myself. This was exactly what I didn't want to put out there as the message to people who had been bitten by the coding bug. I realized that it was partly being exhausted and partly because sometimes we get so wrapped up in talking with our peers about the problems that we can momentarily lose site of the big picture. Which is exciting.

I finished the Week 1 lectures from "How to Change the World" last night. I'm pondering the first assignment which is due tomorrow along with the 100 zillion other things I have on my plate today. Sheesh - and it is Sunday no less.

This morning there was a terrible car accident outside my front door. I got the message: there is no time to waste. You never know when you might die. You can't always assume you have time to get to the truly important things later - or to figure out for yourself what those truly important things are. You need to get out there, learn what you need to learn, talk to all kinds of people and take part in activities outside your comfort zone. You want to make the world a better place? Get out there and start now.

UX (and related) Education Listings

As promised, this post contains a listing, with links, to the education options I presented at this evening's San Diego UX Speakeasy meetup. (More on the meetup itself in the next post)

There is an enormous selection of education and training options out there and this is only a small sampling; enough to give you some ideas and get you started. Not listed here for the most part are conferences, because although conferences often have educational activities and workshops, conferences were covered by my esteemed colleague Bennett King and a cohort of other enthusiastic people.

Minus the pithy commentary that was included in the live version, here are those links:

Interaction Design Foundation - Open Education Materials ; included here is the “Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction”, comprised of 40 “textbooks”. Lots of very interesting in depth reading here. Other good stuff as well on their site.

The UX Bookmark - UX books, videos. Awesome resources with in-depth info. Well maintained.

User Interface Engineering (UIE) - Virtual Seminars, Mobile Immersion, UI18 On Demand. Something for every level of engagement.

Cooper - A design and consulting firm. They have "Cooper U" offering in person courses, and also UX Boot Camp (this is the one I'd really like to attend! in my mind I'm already writing the blog post about it!)

Adaptive Path - another consultancy. Offerings include UX Week, an annual conference, and UX Intensive, a 4 day workshop held in various places around the globe.

Neilsen Norman Group - another consultancy. Offerings include Usability Weeks (one of which will be held here in San Diego next month) and a 3 day Usability Camp.

General Assembly -  A training organization with branches in several cities. Set up to resemble in some ways an academic environment. Offerings include one day events such as a hackathon, & several months long classes.Here is the Los Angeles branch.

Open2Study - Free online courses. Based out of Australia, profs are global. Wide offerings including some interesting UX courses and psychology (a hot topic in some UX circles).

Udacity - one of the famous MOOCs. Offerings across the spectrum of fields from the arts to engineering. Offerings include Computer Science, computing applications (such as web dev't and mobile and design)

Coursera - another of the famous MOOCs. Mission statement talks about providing equal access to education; they have the most demographically diverse team of technical people of all the education sites I surveyed for this presentation. Offerings include Computer Science, engineering, data/stats, programming, HCI, lots of business courses (entrepreneurship, management, marketing etc)

HackDesign - an interesting self described "experiment" for developers who want to learn design. Self-paced course that comes to your inbox.

Online User Experience Institute - lots of UX courses. Has been around quite a while compared to its competitors. 

The Stanford Design ("d") School. If you really want to go for it and get a degree. They also offer individual classes, and an interesting 90 minute crash course for pairs.

Did I miss one of your favorites? If you have a listing you'd like added, send it!

M & M s

Definitely Not A Hot Topic

Two puzzling phenomenon have been running around in my head for some time and I'm wondering if there is a connection between the them. If there isn't, let's make one.

I spend a lot of time working with researchers in the computer science education community, and I have at least one of my limbs firmly planted in computing education policy circles. There is, I suspect, no computing educator or affiliate who is not familiar with "the MOOC question". One of computing education's favorite topics of conversation for several years has been the Massive Open Online Course. Things are only heating up. Who is involved in their creation and propagation, who is not? Where is the quality and where is it lacking? What is the potential and what is the threat? How do we respond?

There are probably those who would rather sit this one out. In response to that and other burning MOOC issues, in my next column for the ACM Inroads Magazine, due to appear in March, I go on for about 1000 words about the importance of engaging  creatively with MOOCS. I don't hear too many people vocally advocating for ignoring MOOCS. That would be inherently contradictory.

The point is: in computing education circles, the hottest topic of the day is, arguably, MOOCS.

Not so in the private tech sector. I also spend a lot of time with people in the private sector and many of them barely know about MOOCS. Or they simply don't feel it is of concern to them. Having done a bit of asking around, I hear, and am told by well-placed friends as well, that the private tech sector isn't all that engaged with the MOOC question. There are a whole host of reasons why they should be engaged with it. Maybe I'll write a column about that...

On the other hand, one of the hottest topics in high-tech is Mobile. Mobile is not The Future. Mobile has Arrived, as one of my UX (User Experience) colleagues reminded me recently. The markets are hot, hot, hot in all sorts of places related to hardware, software, services based upon Mobile. If you aren't into Mobile you are behind the innovation curve. Those industry colleagues I know who aren't working with Mobile in some respect say, either aloud or quietly, they wish they were. Or, at the very least, think they should be. Whether for personal interest, professional mobility (ouch), or simply for not being perceived as behind the times.

As with the MOOC issue and computing educators, it is an endangered species of high-tech employee that will advocate for ignoring Mobile.

On yet another hand, computing educators and in particular computing education researchers don't seem to be doing much with Mobile. The primary discussions about Mobile are about how to get students to unglue from their devices and pay attention to their education.

Which brings me to the burning desire to ask:

What are the possibilities for getting the greater high-tech industry more actively engaged with MOOCS in creative positive ways? 

What are the possibilities for getting the computing education / research community more actively engaged with Mobile in pedagogically creative ways?

Mobile MOOCS? 

Not a far fetched thought at all. 

What else?