Creating a connectivist-inspired learning community
As already touched upon in Lesson 1, we ask that you approach this MOOC not only as an open access course where you can find content relevant to the topic of engaged scholarship, but also as fertile ground in which to plant and nurture the seeds for a 'Community of Practice' (CoP), a peer-to-peer collaborative network of committed people, which we hope will flourish over the MOOC (Biester & Mehlmann, 2020).
As Jingjing Guo explains in this video, the connectivist informed design principle is central here.
Indeed, it is because of the connectivist design principle that the build of this MOOC enables the potential for communityengagement on every page of the course by way of the comments icon (the first of the three icons on the bar at the top of the page) - this opens up comments down the right of the page - and the Padlet interactive exercises.
What is the MOOC community platform, and how does it work?
Our MOOC lives on Circle, a social networking platform designed for communities. Through Circle, we aim to encourage connectivity, bringing together discussions, members, live streams and chat - all in one place.
All Care-full Scholarship community features are accessible from the 'Care-full Scholarship' space. On a laptop or desktop you can find this on the menu bar down the left of the Care-full Courses landing page.
Scholars can share ideas through the comment fields generated for each lesson inside the 'Care-full Scholarship Course’ space. Comment fields are located in the files tab at the top of the individual lesson pages.
General comments can be made in 'Course Chat’, available under the ‘Care-full Scholarship’ space group. All Padlet exercises can also be accessed from the 'Sharing Space’.
Additionally, our forum is the perfect place to connect with other cohorts. To make the most of the collaboration features, please take a moment to fill out your profile.
And of course all this interaction needn't stay solely on this platform. We are more than happy for your @carefullscholar posts to be posted or shared on your social media platform of choice.
In sum then, our hope is that this community can share knowledge, develop expertise, learning, and capacity building – triggered by the input given in the MOOC and by the collective intelligence and experience of all its members. As such, whilst the theme of the more-than-human graphics accompanying this MOOC is resoundingly one of journeying, we also recognise and offer this course as just the beginning of the journey.
