E-learning MOOC: Weeks 2-3

SMS from Lucca rooftop: Where is the happyness?

The Coursera stats for Week 2 stated that out of 41,622 people enrolled in our MOOC, E-learning and Digital Cultures, 16,963 were active.

By now, in week 3, there are 42,570 participants, and 12,000 of these have been active over the past week. With ''fewer" participants, the Discussion Boards are less troublesome than before, and I'm learning a lot!

I've been an active participant and am really enjoying all of it: the resources (videos and readings), the discussions, and the creative projects we can contribute to the course. I've already signed up for another MOOC, and joined a Meetup group in my hometown consisting of people taking various MOOCs from Coursera.

This week we have 4 videos to watch. One of them is called World Builder, and I thought that it was made in Europe, due to the street scenes shown in the video. So I watched the credits carefully to see where it was created. To my great surprise,  I discovered that the film had been made in Lee's Summit, Missouri, not far from my home. What's even more surprising is that my nephew was listed as the creator of the musical score and responsible for the sound design. What an amazing coincidence! I immediately contacted my nephew on Facebook to let him know that "his" video was being featured in a MOOC class from Scotland.

This odd experience seemed yet another testament to the fact that unusual connections are being made all over the world, thanks to technology and the internet, and, as a result, the world is indeed becoming much smaller.

Here's the link to the video: World Builder video