{"id":708,"date":"2013-05-24T22:41:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-25T04:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/?p=708"},"modified":"2013-05-27T14:01:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T20:01:21","slug":"dropout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/2013\/05\/24\/dropout\/","title":{"rendered":"Open letter to an online learner mistakenly self-identifying as a \u201cdropout\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

As mentioned in a previous post<\/a>, several colleagues joined me in the Coursera\/University of Toronto course, “Aboriginal Worldviews and Education” back in February and March. (an excellent course by the way – fodder for another post) Our cohort tried to get together online and by teleconference for a weekly discussion. Some were unable to participate as fully as they’d hoped because of family and work responsibilities. One has kept up a correspondence with me expressing regrets and subtle guilt over dropping out. Below is my most recent email to this colleague.<\/p>\n

A frequent criticism leveled at MOOCs is the low completion rate. I consider that criticism muddled and unfair. Like you said, you signed up knowing you might not have time to completely participate, because it was free. I say, THAT IS OK.
\nI disagree with \u201cyou don’t want too many people like that signing up<\/em>\u201d. If 9 out of 10 will drop out, isn\u2019t it much better to have 1500 sign-ups than 150?\u00a0 Signups in these courses cost nothing (except the time invested by the participant, so that\u2019s his\/her own business, not the critic\u2019s).<\/p>\n

You signed up and found out it was a really great course. That alone was a benefit to you. Beyond that, you continue to engage in this conversation and evidence a strong desire for more participation in the future. Much better you should sign up and find out, than not sign up out of fear of being seen as a failure.<\/p>\n

It is totally unfair that the stigma of failure that falls on college students who, having invested time and money traveling to campus and paying fees*, drop out because of inadequate preparation, unfair I say to place that stigma on someone who signs up to a free course to \u201csee how it goes\u201d. Now, I have serious questions about the justice of the stigma placed upon the former as well, but it has even less legitimacy when it is imputed to a voluntary participant who is satisfying a curiosity that may or may not lead to becoming an active member of a learning community this time.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t feel bad about dropping out. I celebrate that you engaged.<\/p>\n

Edit:<\/strong> After reading Vanessa Vaile’s comment, I have edited my original title which was,
\n“Open Letter to a MOOC dropout”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Stephen Downes www.downes.ca\/post\/58698<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As mentioned in a previous post, several colleagues joined me in the Coursera\/University of Toronto course, “Aboriginal Worldviews and Education” back in February and March. (an excellent course by the way – fodder for another post) Our cohort tried to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,52,71,75,72],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cmc11","tag-etmooc","tag-mooc","tag-mooc-dropouts-are-mooc-joiners","tag-noshame"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1xsA3-dropout","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}