The Mechanical MOOC is an experiment in how to run large open online courses on a shoestring budget by leveraging existing technologies and platforms that users are comfortable using.
The Mechanical MOOC has been used successfully to run several different courses:
- “Gentle introduction to Python” that attracted more than 10000 users over the five times that it ran.
- “Learning creative learning” – A learning methodologies course which attracted +- 20000 learners.
- “Data explorer mission” – a smaller MOOC that focussed on group work.
- “Play with your music” which pioneered a large scale course on music production and analysis.
Like everything we do, we believe in sharing it openly and you can find the source code for the tools we use here on Github. There is some documentation to get you started, but chances are that you will need to get your hands dirty and learn a few things to run your very own Mechanical MOOC.
If you are interested in using the Mechanical MOOC, please tell us about your plans and what you need to get going.
Some more interesting reading for the enthusiastic reader can be found here:
- A first blog post about our ideas and plans for the project.
- P2PU & Media Lab = Everybody Learns
- How To Build a Mechanical MOOC
- At the Cockpit: How the Data Explorer Mission Works
- Data Explorer Mission from the Inside: an Agent’s Story
- Data MOOC: Results, Findings and Recommendations
- Second offering of Python Mechanical MOOC course to begin November 26th
- NYU + MIT Media Lab + P2PU Offer “Play With Your Music”: A Free and Playful Introduction to Audio Engineering
- We Won!
- Learning Creative Learning – A Media Lab & P2PU co-production
- The Mechanical MOOC – Behind the Machine
404 error when I go to this link: Here is what the New York Times says about it.
As a workaround, you can remove everything up to nytimes in the address, and it will then take you to the article.
Which, for convenience is this URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/education/mechanical-mooc-to-rely-on-free-learning-sites.html
Thanks sportyguy1 and Steve Barber. Link is fixed.
How do I get in to the class that’s running already? theitsystem@gmail.com
Hey Marc – There ins’t really a way to join a class that’s running .. BUT .. you can check out all the emails that are going out at http://mechanicalmooc.wordpress.com/ or join the next round, which is kicking off soon. Just sign-up and we’ll automatically add you. — P
Anyone having problems signing up for the class? I get to the second page after entering my email and select finish……….then nothing happens. The webpage doesn’t do anything.
Hi everyone
We’re having some buggy issues with the mechanical MOOC at the moment. The machine is getting a little testy! But we’ll keep you posted and let you all know as soon as we have it all sorted. Apologies!
P2PU