PLENK 2010

Last week of PLENK 2010 (http://connect.downes.ca/). What's the difference between a MOOC and the dreaded face-to-face large lecture class? In PLENK we're asked to take responsibility for our own learning and seek out materials and experts beyond the course and create a personal learning network. Somehow the use of Web 2.0 tools is supposed to translate into a better experience than listening to a lecture, trading class notes with fellow students, and doing the readings - and going to the library to do more reading - and organizing our notes and turning in some pre-Web 2.0 era piece of writing - oh and probably taking a silly multiple choice quiz or two along a way. Instead...if we create a video or post to a blog we're more engaged. Some people must have stuck out the course through the end and participated in the synchronous sessions and blogged and tweeted and posted on the discussion forum. How many people didn't make it through the course? And did they drop out for the same reasons as people drop a face-to-face class? Did we all discover our individual learning objectives and achieve them? Could this course run itself without intervention of our enthusiastic instructors now that all the content is available?