“Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’”

http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/Journal/files/Fear_the_MOOC.html

The article I chose, “Fight the Dead, Fear the MOOC: Questioning The Walking Dead MOOC” is about a massive open online course that is designed around AMCs hit TV show “The Walking Dead.” The class is about society, science, and survival and is using “The Walking Dead” as a consistent thread to weave through and connect the different content of the course. For example, in there public health section they will relate the growing zombie disease from the TV show to real word diseases such as diabetes.

This article relates to the other articles we have discussed in many ways. The role of technology in the classroom is discussed in this article. Educators worry that because it is an online class and centered around a TV show that learning will become more like entertainment. In my opinion, if the student is still learning than its okay. In fact, if they are entertained while learning they will only be more inclined to learn.

The creators of this course are hoping to inspire students to learn about something they generally would not want to learn about. They are doing this by using something they are already interested in and relating to similar topics. This is similar to trying to get students interested in literacy studies. Find something the student already enjoys and then stem from that topic, like using “The Walking Dead” as a common thread throughout the course.