“Hei Mookie!Where do I Start?”

The Role of Artifacts in an Unmanned MOOC

Marisa PontiUniversity of Gothenburg &

University of Oslo

Marisa Ponti

Why Unmanned MOOC?

The MMOOC Infrastructure

Marisa Ponti

According to the MOOC

organizers:

”…online learning tools have

become robust enough to be

used with a minimum

amount of coordination…”

Marisa Ponti

According to the MOOC

organizers:

”…learners can use these

tools and help each other

without a central

authority…”

Ethnographic case studyquestion are there

actions offacilitationembeddedin the artifacts?

question if so, how

are theymademateriallypresent?

Perspective examined: Designersanticip

taio

ns of

facilitation actions and forms of learner participation actu

aliz

ation of

anticipations in the artifacts

Marisa Ponti

Theoretical lens:

Inscription

Example: the key at the front desk (Latour,

????)

Examined artifacts

• Weekly messages

Email scheduler

• Q&A

Study group on OpenStudy.com

• Interactive interface

Codecademy tutorial

Marisa Ponti

Email scheduler

Anticipations ActualizationsCoordinate work:

“So those pieces were there: I had the

content, I had the interactive platform, I

had the exercises that would give

automated feedback to an almost

unlimited number of people.

So the only thing that was missing,

really, was a way to sort of stitch them

all together”

Weekly mails to coordinate

activities and make people

aware

MOOC blog working as

archive

Mailing list to form groupsConnect participants in

different rounds of the

MMOOC:

“Provide a loose structure and a cohort

of learners to study with, not to enforce

a rigid progression that must be strictly

adhered to”.

Marisa Ponti

The study group MIT

6.189

A Gentle Introduction to

Python

Anticipations Actualizations

Engage learners in social interactions like

in social media

A Facebook-like platform where the “point

is to study together, not to trade pictures

and jokes”,

Reward engaged learners: “ who have

been answering questions regularly,

frequently and quickly… who are

engaged and spend time just answering

questions on this topic …They are team

workers.

Signalling good responses as “best

responses” and awarding medals.

Show how learners are progressing in

their learning journey and develop soft

skills, without using grades or transcripts

Individual scorecard calculating skills such

as problem solving, teamwork, and level of

engagement

A credentialing system

Marisa Ponti

The Codecademy tutorial

Interactive interface

Anticipations Actualizations

Engage learners in a an immersive

experience: “to let you focus on what

matters: the lesson, your code, and what

you're building”.

A web console where to write, submit and

save code.

Provide a feedback loop, because: “it's

easier to learn when you can see you're

doing. For most screen resolutions, you

can now always see a visual preview of

any webpage you are coding, or a

terminal output of your code”.

A display showing the output of submitted

code, or providing instant feedback to the

code.

Provide help when learners are stuck. Q&A Forum

• Delegation to the artifacts suggests

decentering of authority

• How facilitation is performed is

discursively organized through actual

sociotechnical connections

Conclusions

Marisa Ponti

It’s over:

Thank you! Research graciuosly supported through

the Swedish Research Council

Contact me at marisa.ponti@ituniv.se