Thursday, December 23, 2010

Lurkers as consumers vs. producers

RE: Lurkers and the PLENK 2010 discussions... George Siemens has talked about the problem with lurkers in the MOOCs he's taught. Some of us (lurkers) defend ourselves. We're still digesting the information; we're not quite ready to brave exposing our work to the experts; we're too busy. Excuses, excuses. Ramit Sethi points out "It’s so easy to consume. It’s much harder to produce something." I Will Teach You to Be Rich. December 20, 2010.. So.. maybe it's best to insist on SOME production. However there's nothing to hold over MOOC participants. How can instructors make participants feel comfortable enough to take a risk?

2 comments:

Vanessa Vaile said...

But who gets to decide what counts as production, how much is "required" (a term redolent of the prescriptive)?

Nor is the question "How can instructors make participants feel comfortable enough [or motivated] to take a risk?" limited to MOOC participants. I'm wrestling with the same for a small self-paced, online ESL study/writing group that also resists producing.

Vanessa Vaile said...

PS the honest (not excuse making) student/ participant answers might include: "you can't make me" and/or "excuse" is loaded language automatically discrediting what may be valid reasons (or maybe not).