Coming Next

The reason recent columns have been referring to fewer and fewer courses is that the end is in sight for my One Year BA.

There are still a couple of units for Science and Cooking to finish (one on Baking, one on Fermentation) not to mention a several labs to complete, and ChinaX is one week away from closing the first part of a course I look forward to engaging in all of next year.  But other than that, coursework is pretty much done which leave just writing (including completing my senior thesis) before this whole project wraps at the end of the year.

As regulars will have noticed, I’ve returned to weekly newsletters and podcasts for December in hope of getting to as many course reviews and interviews in as possible before December 31.  The holidays will confound this schedule a bit, but assume any loose threads will be tied off sometime early in the new year.

Meanwhile, I’m planning to use the last few weeks of the Degree of Freedom blog to reflect on what this whole research project might say about what MOOCs are, where they are going and how they might evolve to provide the greatest benefit to the most people.

And speaking of people, the second half of this final series (to run the last week of the year) will zero in on what it means to be an independent learner in this time of free-educational plenty.

As a final note, the week between Christmas and New Years is always the time when the American Philosophical Association has its Eastern Division conference.  And as a final Degree of Freedom experiment, I and my philosophy buddy plan to attend this year’s philo-confab where I hope to find out if my One  Year MOOC BA has taught me enough to know what anyone is talking about at this event. So anticipate some reflections on that experience to inform some of the final commentary on this site.