I started the Digital Analytics and Learning MOOC – DALMOOC, this week. George Siemens and his co-conspirators describe it as a dual-layer MOOC, although it seems to me that dual-track would be a better term. The idea is that one can complete the MOOC either by following the traditional path of content followed by assignments or by following a social path where one is given a problem to solve and then finds some kindred spirits, goes forth and solves. This sounds great in theory. My reality of it hasn’t been great so far.

First, I’m not clear where to go to find the problems and connect with other learners on the “social” track. I’m looking for some sort of hub for this layer of the MOOC and haven’t found it yet. Second, The first assignment seems to be to gather information on learning analytics tools. One does this by downloading an MS Word document and filling it out. I am hard pressed to think of a less social way to approach this task.

Finally, I worry that the course may do a wonderful job of teaching about tools, while leaving out important stuff like how to figure out which data is important and useful. That’s the most important thing to learn about learning analytics.