BY JUSTIN REICH

November 13, 2020

Failure to Disrupt Book Club with George Siemens and Elizabeth Losh

For TeachLab’s second Failure to Disrupt Book Club episode, Justin Reich is joined again by friend and colleague Audrey Watters to reflect on their conversation with special guests George Siemens and Elizabeth Losh. They discuss Failure To Disrupt’s Chapter 1: Instructor-Guided Learning at Scale and Massive Open Online Courses, looking at “three big bets of MOOCs,” and exploring why MOOCs failed to achieve their most ambitious goals. 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an ed tech thing where we can spend eight years talking about, “What is it?” We’ve been trying to define, “What are MOOCs? Are MOOCs this, are they that? They’re not this, they’re not that.” I find it fascinating why we’re finding so much difficulty really nailing down what MOOCs are and what role they play.” 

– George Siemens, Writer/Professor/Researcher

In this episode we’ll talk about:

  • Elizabeth Losh’s EdTech story
  • The global impact of MOOCs 
  • Online and remote learning during COVID
  • FemTechNet as an example of creative innovation
  • Productive discourse in online forums
  • The complicated relationship between Universities and MOOCs

George Siemens is a writer, theorist, speaker, and researcher on learning, networks, technology, analytics and visualization, openness, organizational effectiveness, and complexity in digital environments. He is a Professor and the Executive Director of the Learning Innovation and Networked Knowledge Research Lab at University of Texas, Arlington and co-director for the Center for Change and Complexity in Learning at the University of South Australia.

Elizabeth Losh is a theorist and scholar,  and the Gale and Steve Kohlhagen Professor of English and American Studies at the College of William and Mary. She specializes in Rhetoric; Digital Publishing; Feminism & Technology; Digital Humanities; and Electronic Literature.

Resources and Links

Watch the full Book Club webinar here!

Check out Justin Reich’s new book, Failure To Disrupt!

Transcript

https://teachlabpodcast.simplecast.com/episodes/bookclub2/transcript

Produced by Aimee Corrigan and Garrett Beazley

Recorded and mixed by Garrett Beazley

Check out the Failure to Disrupt Virtual Book Club Podcast!

In the Fall of 2020 Justin Reich invited guest presenters and students from MIT for a ten week book club exploring themes in Failure to Disrupt. Now he has turned into a Podcast to relive those discussions and offer more insights.