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"