Why am I interested in this course/cmooc

 My interest has been peaked for a few reasons. First of all, my past research in online environments has centered on trust and community development. I believe that trust is intimately tied to ethics. If someone demonstrates ethical behaviour, either online or on the ground, we are more inclined to trust them. If we choose to act ethically we are assuring others that we can be trusted to do at the very least no harm. 

Now don't get me started on the definitions of trust and ethics as I fell that both are context dependent...maybe? My thinking on this is a work in progress.

Second, when I first began to study online environments there weren't any social media platforms. (in this I don't include online communities although I believe that they are inherently social and depend on some form of communication media). When I started there was little discussion of privacy, data surveillance and collection, etc. and the Association of Internet Researchers had yet to come up with an ethics statement/policy. I did, however have to go through ethical review for my research and I was very careful to disguise my raw data (collected from Usenet, which was "public"). If I were to attempt the research now, I might not have gotten approval...hard to say. So, ethics, (data) analytics, and the duty of care continue to be an interest of mine and an increasingly contested area.

Third, I am a retired lecturer in adult education and have taught courses about online learning and community development. One of the concepts/theories that I have put forward to my students was connectivism, although I had never taken a cmooc. So this is my chance to experience first hand something that I intellectually tried to understand. 

So here I am

#ethics21

Comments

  1. faberglas8 October 2021 at 14:36

    I look forward to participating in the cMOOC and agree that trust is central to community building, especially online. I wrote about it on my website: http://markcorbettwilson.com/wp/my-portfolio-of-self-directed-learning/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bernie Moseley-Williams12 October 2021 at 08:41

    I teach adults online. My preference for teaching is to take people outside and experience whatever we are trying to learn. I rarely get that opportunity, so for me, creating a rich online experience is one of my goals.

    I have been following SD for along time and he has influenced how I teach. I'm looking to get better.

    Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

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