Tag Archives: #pocomooc

Call for Ideas: Envisioning Postcolonial MOOCs #pocomooc

By Maha Bali and Shyam Sharma, edcontexts co-founders and facilitators

Can we safely say that xMOOCs, for the most part, reproduce privilege? The privileged elite universities that can afford to create them, the privileged star professors who have the resources to build them, the privileged mostly Western point of view they perpetuate, and the privileged learners who can access them?

But can we also say we see a glimmer of hope in initiatives such as connectivist MOOCs that decenter authority (e.g. #rhihzo14, #rhizo15), MOOCs from non-Western origins (e.g. the Arab Edraak) and people who are able to challenge the xMOOC paradigm even while offering their MOOCs on places like Coursera (the Universiry of Edinburgh people who do #edcmooc and Jesse Stommel et al who did #moocspeare and Cathy Davidson who did #FutureEd)?

We (Maha and Shyam) are writing a book chapter with the title “Envisioning the Postcolonial MOOC” and we would like to solicit ideas from people everywhere on what that might entail. We do so because while we have our own ideas, part of our vision involves diversity and inclusivity. We also didn’t do a formal research study because we hope you are willing to make your responses open and attributable to you.

How do YOU envision a postcolonial* MOOC?
[* we understand postcolonial here broadly to mean anything that challenges the legacy of colonialism/imperialism, or even neocolonialism)

Let us know in the comments here, or tweet to #pocoMOOC or write a brief blogpost and link it in the comments here or on Twitter using #PocoMOOC. We will curate on edcontexts.org and hopefully find a way to use these ideas in our book chapter, attributing you appropriately.

Unfortunately we are only giving you one week (because we don’t have much more time) – even a one-line contribution can be valuable. So what do you think? You have until August 18. Go 🙂

Thanks for taking the time!

20150811-103912.jpg
Image “Magical Town of Tepotzlan Mexico-16″
by Christopher William Atach, retrieved from Flickr under CC-BY-SA license