I think I'd like to give an artisanal MOOC.
In other words, not massive, not open, but yes, online and a course. I would choose 10-12 students from anywhere, we would choose a topic. We would have a time period, 10 weeks, say. It would be a virtual workshop or seminar. I would not record canned lectures but I would skype with each student or set up virtual tertulias. I would not charge the students the first time. Once I get the model working, then I would charge them on a sliding scale the 2nd time, nothing for grad students and $1,000 for full professors... or whatever works out logically.
Anyway, this might be one of those brilliant ideas that occur to me and turn out to be much less brilliant the next day. We'll see!
I want to use the speed of the internet and other technology, their power to reduce distances, while keeping the slowness of the analog humanities.
3 comments:
The technical mechanism might be something like Google Helpouts. I don't think there's any way to schedule followups there, though.
Tangentially , it never occurred to me that Slow Food was intended as the opposite of "fast food" till an Italian pointed it out to me. I think the salience of the phrase "fast food" must be quite different in a foreign language -- I hardly even hear it as a composition of simple words.
That google site seems more like a how to wiki kind of thing, not artisanal enough in its vibe.
A guy had this slow poetry idea a few years ago, inspired by slow food. It seemed fallacious to me, in that fast techniques of poetry are not necessarily less artisanal. Expert chefs work really fast in the kitchen too.
I would totally take that course. I really miss taking good, useful courses.
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