
ETmooc
WHAT IS IT?
* et: educational technology
* mooc: massive open online course [Archive: ETmooc]
* massive: hundreds of participants
* open: free and open to all
* online: all online
* course: personalized course: what do you want to learn?
A community of learners connecting, communicating, considering, contributing, collaborating, creating, and curating a body of knowledge open and shared by all based on the needs of the participants
Key Words: Connect, Contribute, Create, Curate
About Page/Sheri Edwards January – March, 2013
And so much more…
Though the ETmooc course lived during the first months of 2013, many of the participants continued the connection, the network, the relationships, often joining together in January for an online reunion. And this year– a 10 year celebration.
A few continuing connections and extensions from #ETmooc:
- Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi continued their journey with Genius Hour and published a book: The Genius Hour Guidebook
- Many participants joined in a post-ETmooc community [lost to Google+]
- Ben Wilkoff gathered several of #etmooc participants into a network of vloggers: The Open Spokes, reflecting on education topics. Check out: Playlists, such as Education in 5 Years from April, 2013.
- Ben has greatly expanded his reflections and community work as founder of Masculinity Detox
That emphasis of ETmooc: “A community of learners connecting, communicating, considering, contributing, collaborating, creating, and curating a body of knowledge open and shared by all based on the needs of the participants” has encouraged so many of us to become active helpers in the world with a view and vision of a world of collaboration to create solutions that serve the needs of a troubled world.
We’ve not given up– we keep dipping in to conversations to open minds to the possibilities of working together in whatever ways we can.
2013

Poem for 5 Card Story
Choose your path
on Flickr and a 5-Card Story
Let the tendrils of life flow through old ideas
To add new steps and styles
That plant your unique rainbow of creativity
That waves gently into the path of others, rippling new oceans of endless connections.
2023
When Karon Young shared her beautiful reflection on ETmooc 10 Years Later, I could identify with each of her ideas. I wondered what I could share and, in a search of my Flickr ETmooc, I rediscovered this 5 Card Story.
“…plant your unique rainbow of creativity that waves gently into the path of others”
That phrase resonated with me again, especially during these times of chaos and division, as Alan Levine points out near the end of his 10 Year reflection: ETmooc 10.
Note: And we thank Alan for updating the kinks in the archived ETmooc blog! It’s the little bits that help keep the world tended towards a positive path.
That Flickr picture of the 5-Card story includes a link to an ETmooc post I wrote February 26, 2013: Digital Literacies in Education / ETmooc. That post shares quotes from Henry Jenkins on transparency and ethics as part of our literacies, which set me onto considerations for teaching and learning– and connecting with others, which I continued in my classroom, refining and emphasizing learners participating as authors, historians, scientists, mathematicians all the while considering others and their own places in the world– “That plant your unique rainbow of creativity That waves gently into the path of others.”
In one quote, Henry Jenkins suggests and spoke this truth we now know– “we are moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume media, toward one in which everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced.” [Page 10 Henry Jenkins White Paper: Digital Learning: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture Media Education for the 21stCentury.]
And all of these reminded me of a quote from Steve Hargadon, shared with me by my ETmooc friend, Denise Krebs, because of the mass amounts of information thrown at us:

We have a stake in this chaotic culture– a stake to keep the vision alive– of building open communities of inclusiveness and dialogue. Transparent. Ethical.
And, through ETmooc, we learned to participate as we can– to add our own bits into the world along with and counter to the chaos barking at us.
Through blogs, art, participation in online and neighborhood communities, attending and participating in local school boards, town councils, etc., writing letters, we add a bit of our own in thousands of small voices.
‘I mean there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers — at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.’
Octavia Butler, science fiction author, from Audrey Watters March 8, 2022 transcript/post “Hope for the Future”
You can be one of them if you choose to be, to give a little bit of our own.
2023 5-Card Story

No matter the chaos, dip in!
on Flickr and 5-Card Story by Sheri Edwards for #ETmooc
Add the blooms of brightness and care–
In your neighborhoods, online and in world,
Be the lens of beauty and equity
And keep sharing, giving to the world