Digital FirstGPPt.6

GRAHAM PIKE: The thing that was
most challenging for all of us and myselt-- Andrew, Jane, I
mean, everyone involved-- was the changeability of
the FutureLearn platform when it was first launched. Now, for me, that was my
main negative experience. And I realised that we're now
in a world where future learning is more or less fixed. But coming up with ideas
and everything, when you had no idea what the
platform was going to be, and then when we came up with
all these-- Andrew produced wonderful ideas of HTML5, things
which we then couldn't do, there was a problem-- issues
about the videos we could do and everything about that.

That changeability was the
downside, because in a sense, it was the antithesis of
what digital first was, where we were being platform driven. We had all these fantastic
ideas about content that we then couldn't
do because we were too preoccupied with the platform. I would say, if I
had to do it again, although-- I hope
it doesn't appear arrogant-- I was confident
enough, though it didn't feel like it at the time, to do
that writing and most, 99% of the production by myself. If I was to do it
again, I think it would be improved by having
input from other academics.

Even if it's just one person
reading through and giving comments, I think that would
be something I'd want to do. I think it would improve it. In terms of the upside, I
think for me, the key thing-- and we've had some really lovely
feedback about the course, I think the thing
that worked well was working very
closely with LTS and OMU. To turn what was quite high
level academic content, into something that was very
approachable and engaging.

And it was building in
narrative storytelling devices and approaches hooks,
reveals, cliff hangers, all of those sorts of things,
getting those into the course. It was really
enjoyable doing it, made me completely
rethink how I approach doing distance learning. Because I think before,
it's was like set up, here's some theory, here's
some research, here's an application,
here's an evaluation. This turned it on its head
and put the story first.

I really enjoyed doing that. I've written a followup
article on OpenLearn on writing fiction
and how it was done. But I think one of the reasons
we've had some the positive responses is because
of that formulation, where people are almost learning
without realising they're doing it. It's not, Here's 10 things
I'm going to tell you.

Here they are, and
here they are again. It was incorporate
them into a story, so you were keen to
get to the next bit and implicitly learning
all this stuff as you went. I'd be very happy to be
involved in another MOOC. If I did it again,
I'd quite like it to be factored into
my workload at the start, so it wasn't [INAUDIBLE] on top.

I have actually
pitched another MOOC. I'd love to do a followup
version of the current one, where we see the
investigation which finishes at the end of the
first one, go to court, and where the learners would
see what happens in the court and could take on the
role of mock jurors..