2014 Interviews

On the Communitarian Possibilities of MOOCs

Filreis, Al

Al Filreis presents: "Open Access Humanities, Open Pedagogy: Exploring The Communitarian Possibilities of MOOCs." Filreis teaches a massively open online version of his U Penn course Modern & Contemporary American Poetry to tens of thousands of students worldwide. In 2013, the Chronicle of Higher Education identified him as one of 10 key technology innovators in education, and in September 2014 his MOOC will begin its third consecutive year on Coursera. Filreis has been teaching poetry online with various technologies since 1994. In his conversation at Columbia, "Open Access Humanities, Open Pedagogy: Exploring the Communitarian Possibilities of MOOCs," he presents thirteen provocative theses - "contentions," he calls them - about MOOCs and teaching and learning. Al Filreis is Kelly Professor, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, and Publisher of Jacket2 - all at the University of Pennsylvania.