Embed MOOCs in a K-12 classroom? Hey, that was MY idea!

[Michele Vogt-Schuller]

As part of my dual credit senior English course I teach, I'll be embedding a couple of Coursera Courses: Videogames and Learning and Creativity, Innovation and Change. This is part of a quasi-flipped/online/enhanced course I wrote with my partner institution's LMS (the community college who offers the dual credit). Because this is a non-fiction writing course, I have a lot of choice in terms on content, and have decided to not only embed lots of content to create learning tracks (both of these Coursera courses are in the Education/Social Reform track) - the other thing - I'll be working through the content alongside my students. I also use a lot of video, including RSAnimates (I started the year with Ken Robinson's Changing Paradigm of Education, which the students loved - one boy raised his hand and asked "are you a teacher?"). In any event, I was going through my ASCD daily and saw the following: http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/09/02/get-ready-moocs-are-comin... 

I think that MOOC's and other online/technology learning opportunities create the conditions not only to differentiate curriculum within traditional courses, such as AP, but also to take education off its tracks by creating more opportunities for interdisciplinary, project based learning, including incorporating learning strands (not too different from a reading or writing across the disciplines approach).