My experience in eMOOCs 2017 Conference (by Angels Porxas)

 My first impression when I saw the call to collaborate as a volunteer PhD student in the eMOOCs’ conference organization was: “That sounds interesting! But I am not sure what is about…” So, I applied. Today was our last day in the Congress, that lasts for a full week. And now I can tell few things about eMOOCs: what they are, how they are organised, how they are designed, how they are created and which impact they might have in future education. These are some of the issues I learnt during these days.

Although I was not totally unaware of MOOCs before the conference, as I already knew few of its platforms and I had a couple of experiences with online courses, I can tell that now I am definitely mindful of the impact they will have in education. Luckily, and I think that this is the main point of participating, as a volunteer you do not only have the opportunity to attend the plenary sessions, but to participate at least in one of the workshops (in my opinion, much more interesting and stimulating than the sessions). I had the chance to attend a couple of them:

One was about how to film a MOOC using the green screen technique. Until you don’t try you don’t know what’s behind it: how to move in front of the screen, the difficulty of looking at the camera at the same time that you are smiling, thinking on what you are going to say, not moving too far from the screen, neither to close, neither too much on the right, pointing the correct staff on an imaginary projection, and overall trying not to feel too ridiculous. But at the end, the biggest message I received in that workshop is that talking and acting in front of a camera is something you get to learn.

The other workshop I attended was called “The Art of disruption”. Again, my curiosity pushed me to choose this workshop because of its intriguing name, and it was a fantastic experience of brainstorming and creativity. We went deeply to the future of MOOCs through different group dynamics lasting around eight hours (not in a row of course!). I wouldn’t know how to describe exactly what we did, so instead of that I can tell you that through a series of games and dynamics we ended up mapping some ideas for the future trends in MOOCs. What I enjoyed more of this workshop is that we used creativity in different forms to work on concepts that otherwise would seem so boring (at least for a social science mind as mine).

In conclusion, I highly recommend this experience to future volunteers. The work you are required is not pressing at all (accompanying the keynote speakers, preparing water and microphones for them, etc.), and in exchange you get credits, free lunch, good moments with great people and, best of all, “food for thought” and come up with new ideas for using these technologies in your future career as a researcher and a lecturer. I am definitely going to use MOOCS at some point in the near future, and not only as a student.

M.A Porxas