My MOOC experience

I have recently completed the Leading Strategic Innovation in Organisation MOOC from Vanderbilt University on the Coursera platform, the first ever MOOC I have completed. The title of the course is self explanatory. It didn’t only cover how to come up with a lot of ideas and be innovative, but also on how to identify, manage, and overcome the contraints of innovation in organisation in order to maximise the chance of success.

I have enrolled in two other MOOCs before this one, but failed to complete them. I dropped out of the first course because I found out I wasn’t interested in the materials two weeks in. As for the other course, I enrolled in it a while ago, and when it actually started, I couldn’t find time to do it. So I made a note to re-enrol when it opens for enrolment again later this year.

I found out about the Leading Strategic Innovation in Organisation MOOC late last year, and thought I’d be benefited from it because I’m the project leader of an “innovation” project. I’m also interested in innovation in general and am keen to brush up on things I learned from business school – many moons ago.

It’s an 8-week course, apparently the first ever Coursera MOOC with group project assessment (now that’s innovative!). I Yammer’ed it and was lucky enough to have formed a group with my colleague, Kay. I could see from the discussion forum people are having trouble forming groups, many of them ended up working with participants from other countries, I don’t know how they did it!

So we kicked off early March, then I realised how demanding it was. We have to watch the video lectures, required reading, optional reading (which is chapters from Owen’s book, Creative people must be stopped!). We are also required to complete a survey, a short quiz, a short reflection essay, plus team project component every week. In the past 8 weeks I spent most of my spare time on this MOOC. The course materials were very interesting. Owen was a pleasure to watch/listen to, very charismatic. He explains complicated concepts in different ways and made things easier to understand and digest. Looking back, I’ve learned a lot in just 8 weeks. I plan to write about them in this blog when I get around to it 🙂

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the group project component. Kay was a fantastic and supportive team member, I would say that I was able to complete this course because I worked with her. When you’re in a team, you don’t want to let your team member down, and that’s what kept me going.

Will I do it again? I definitely will. Overall it’s a great experience. It doesn’t matter the platform was a bit clunky and confusing, it doesn’t matter sometimes you get “funky” peers who might assess your work using their own scale or give you a zero without telling you why. The fact that you’re learning is all that matters.

Here’s a link to our very simple project presentation. I’ve been wanting to do a Prezi for a while, thanks to Kay who suggested it. With very limited time, I think we’ve done a good job!

My next MOOC, Crafting an effective writer: tools of the trade, starts today. What about you?