EDC MOOC assignment - the end of things #edcmooc

This is my final post and final assignment for EDC MOOC. The final visual product is here, the title is

5 Rules for being human in a MOOC

If you haven't just clicked on the Prezi above then you may want to read this explanation. The idea and text for the assignment is based on this blog, if you want to you can read past posts, but it isn't essential.

Images
The images were created with Fresh Paint using a touch screen, in other words finger painting with computers. Why, well it was fun, it created images that were copyright free and that were relevant to the topic in hand. If you like the images see also the Flikr stream for this project here.

Composing the project
The project uses multimedia. Sound, spoken word and music of a sort, text and images. All were generated using a computer in the spirit of EDC MOOC. Its important to understand that the piece is not anti technology, machines could meet some or all of these criteria, it is about preserving human qualities in interacting through the MOOC. The voices are different because I wanted to reflect the randomness of the sound quality of computer speech. I think I achieved the same effect by just choosing different personalties from the computer programme.

Music
Composed by me, rudimentary but of course computer generated and copyright free.

Technology used:

• Prezi [ www.prezi.com ]
• beatlab [ www.beatlab.com ]
• From Text To Speech - Free online TTS service  [ www.fromtexttospeech.com ]
• Fresh Paint from Windows 

I get by with a little help from my friends

A screenshot of the help I received through the #EDC MOOC Facebook Group ... thank you friends ...

You actually read War and Peace, Nick? #edcmooc

I will keep this short. Of course. A pre-internet joke. A hotelier offers a free stay to any guest who will read one page of his copy of Ulysses. When asked why he replied that he wanted to own the only copy that had actually been read. Most people have not read War and Peace. Most people are not stupid. Stupid people believe long and laborious activity means it is worth while. If you don't like brushing the carpet, then get a Dyson. Your cleaning universe won't collapse, it will give you more time and you will be more efficient. Before books, people told stories and talked more. Then they read books if they could read and get access to books, they learned to be alone and concentrate hard. Now they all search the net, interact frequently and can still tell stories or read books if they want to. Nick its your problem if you have a problem.

Five. Engage #edcmooc

They engage who also stand and watch. The question of engagement is interesting since it is a personal/private act. One might not know if a person has engaged until they show some sign a signifier, a post in a forum for example. There is the question that if a person has engaged with a topic and no one is there to see or there is no outward sign, does it matter.

How do we know a machine is switched on? Because the designers of the machine have added lights, green for on and red  for off. Lights are designed to flash to signify processing. The machine itself is indifferent to the lights but the spectators, the users and onlookers of the machine need a sign, is it on? Or if it fails to work as expected Can you see any lights?

In the MOOC, to read the resources and monitor the discussion boards has value, it is a personal engagement with the subject matter. Like a machine without lights we may suspect the spectator or onlooker is engaged but we have no way of knowing. Perhaps we should look at engagement as a Maslow type hierarchy.

I lead or initiate a discussion thread (Green Light Flashing)

I engage in a discussion, I signal to other participants I am engaged (Green Light is on)

I engage with the material of the MOOC (Standby Light)

I am engaged (No Lights)

"However you understand it, Engage"

Four: Additionality, bring gifts, links and clicks #edcmooc

Bring gifts. The best gifts for a MOOC are those of an intellectual kind. An interesting theory, website, book or video that is germane to the topic can have great and unpredictable value to some or many participants. The gift is not all in the link etc. but in the process of assessing and reviewing its relevance to the topic in hand, perhaps even adding a commentary.  In other words it has been through a human mind.

Google, even with its new Hummingbird algorithm is not good at giving gifts. Search is clever but it is not intelligence. It is uncritical, biased and unaccountable and its process secret, known only to a select coterie of Google managers.

Infinitely better is the crowd sourced resource base. Perhaps quirky, esoteric, open and  inconsistent but also relevant, informed and additional. Add something to your posts that extends the resource base. Surprise, extend and challenge.

"Extent to which a new input (gift of link, idea, theory, book, website or video) adds to the existing inputs (instead of replacing any of them) and results in a greater aggregate."

"Additionality, bring gifts, links and clicks"

Three. Support other people to learn #edcmooc

The temptation of the MOOC discussion environment is to post in isolation from other people. We say what we have to say but do not relate it to other posts or enter into a discussions. In a sense it is a form of personal advertising. Flashing up a relevant opinion and the rolling onto the next. The lack of interaction is dehumanising as it is only through interaction with other comments that we know another person has read, ingested and formulated a new opinion.

One might imagine a machine, a random opinion generator, spamming off preformed opinions gleaned form the web in response to reading a discussion topic stream and making an algorithmic match to something from another part of the web. It might not even be a machine but an instrumental student posting to make their quota. No one learns in these interactions. It is educational landfill, a horizontal line of valueless text in a landscape.

Help add texture and  build the learning landscape up. Take a comment and add some value. Call for a response form the poster. Help them to learn something new today.

"Support other people to learn"

Two: Civility in MOOCs #edcmooc

Being civil, is not the same as agreeing with those whom you secretly disagree in order to be polite. It means being able to disagree and yet maintain the tones and language of polite dialogue. This maybe easier for those who have infinite patience, generally machines and robots. The super market self checkout might continue to explain in the same tone any number of times that there is something unexpected in the bagging area and the best course of action is to remove it and start again. Simple repetition alone will not win arguments and may eventually provoke a breach of the civility rule.

There are, also, systems that seek to engage with us on the phone, who possess the qualities of civility and infinite patience as they invite us in near human voices to speak sentences into a voice recognition machine. They also have the knack of repeating back to us as if we were children. Did you mean NO. Without any inflection in the voice it is possible to know if they are being ironic.

Between human actors civility both allows and invites a response. Incrementally building a dialogue that is informative and instructive to participants and others who may read it. It creates an exposition of a subject that reaches far beyond the initial exchange.

"So be civil"

One. Be who you are #edcmooc

Scholarly endeavour seeks the truth, the genuine article, the original idea. It further seeks expose the fake and the fraudulent from art forgery to forged artefacts. Scholars are expected to be present as themselves and build reputations on their integrity their "genuineness" as researchers and teachers. The worst sin is to plagiarise, to pass off someone else's work as their own.

In the age of advanced web technology we have a new kind of fakerey, the fake human. The animated characters that haunt corporate websites offering to help and answer questions. Even if they were able to pass a Turing Test the only honourable course of action is for them to announce their fake human credentials. "Hello, I am xxxxxx and I am a fake human. I can appear to answer your questions but in fact I only process your question against an algorithm and select the most likely pre-prepared answer." 

In the world of the web, not being who you really are, or being someone else or stealing someone else's identity is relatively easy. A fake profile, a fake Facebook or Linkedin account would be a logical starting point. If you can't be bothered you could hide as the ubiquitous "Anonymous". 

I would argue that we need to be assured of the identity of the person behind those we meet, even in a virtual world. Fakery corrupts and degrades the quality of discourse. Fakery is the equivalent of shifting sands, build your house here and it will surely fall.

"Be who  you are"