Well, actually, it's the start of two new MOOCs!

I know that Change11 and DS106 are still going, but change11 seems to be on life support. It seems to me anyway that the same 4-5 people are posting, and even though there are interesting people in these final weeks, most people have moved on, which is too bad. I still read the daily digest, and those 4-5 people post some thought provoking stuff, but I just have nothing to add to the conversation, so I lurk :-)

With DS106 I don't feel that creative (which is a bummer), so I've resolved that once the summer comes and I have more mental bandwidth (too many work projects taking up space now) I plan on doing two challenges every week and work through the assignments in the summer months. I've wanted to get a podcast off the ground for a while, so doing something for DS106 should kill two birds with one stone ;-) Anyone interested in doing a "MOOC Talk Weekly" with me? LOL :-)

Anyway, so what are these two new MOOCs that I've jumped into? The first is the fslt12 MOOC that I've seen advertised around change11; and the second is Blackboard's MOOC (yes, the LMS juggernaut is doing a MOOC) with Curtis Bonk (that name sounded familiar,and then I realized I've read some of the stuff he's written).

fslt12 hasn't started yet but I decided to join early so that I can get acclimated with the materials and processes before if kicks off in a few weeks. The main audience for this MOOC are people who are teaching in higher education. It's part of a grant (from what I remember) and there are tutors available to guide those who are in need of certification to teach (I think it's a UK requirement). I opted to not go for certification because I think that there probably are colleagues out there that need it (whereas for me it's a badge for MOOC completion), but I guess I reserve the right to pursue certification if enough tutors are available :-) it should be interesting. Here is the URL with course info: http://openbrookes.net/firststeps12/

The MOOC facilitated by Curtis Bonk and Coursesites focuses on design, instructional technology and learner motivation. This MOOC is currently in week 0, introductions and getting th lay of the land for the course. Two days into Week 0 and there are over 300 introductions. I don't know if this is considered massive, but it seems like a lot of discussions to go through. In MOOCs like change, where gRSShopper is used to syndicate posts, I feel like I can pick and choose the posts that I read and comment. With LMSs and discussion boards I feel like I really need to read everything. This is just a frame of mind that I need to break and disallow. I had the same issue with LAK11 (also hosted on Moodle, like fslt12). I think that ach week I will pick 10 interesting posts (based on title of discussion board post) to read and comment back to. If I don't see anything catchy, I will just pick 25 at random to read and pick 10 to respond to.

The blackboard MOOC also has a badge for completion. It uses Blackboard Learn's adaptive release system (along with honesty from participants) to award a badge after certain key things are done each week. I am quite interested in this since it's the first open badge implementation that I've seen. To check this course out see here: https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/courseHomepage.htmlx?course_id=_215194_1

Both course are 6 weeks long which is good for me. I am really feeling the fatigue with change11 being 36 weeks long. I wonder how well mid sized MOOCs would be received (8-9 weeks in length). I consider a longer MOOC to be 12-13 weeks in length, or the length of an American higher education semester.