Learning by Doing at the Exciting and Exacting IIT-Bx Workshop
On 3 March 2017, the IIT-Bombay (IITBx) team hosted CLIx members eager to learn how to create a course on Open Edx. The preparations had begun a month earlier with meetings, e-mails and pre-course work, ably organised by Dr Kalpana Kannan and Urmila of IITB.
The first day was thoughtfully packed, containing:
- An overview by Prof Phatak on creating and managing large scale online courses (MOOCs)
- A well-thought workflow of the administrative aspects of course creation by Dr Kannan
- The engrossing process of designing a course, as explained by Prof Gaitonde with handouts and demos
- Design principles of producing materials by Sajjan
- Recording three videos in the IIT-B studio and an acquaintance with A View
- An engrossing session by Dr Sameer Sahasrabudhe on how to popularise and sustain a course along and nitty-gritty such as not wearing checked shirts while recording or using the 6× 6 rule
The next day was even more exciting and exacting, with hands-on sessions in which we created courses online, bombarding the IIT-B team with questions all the while.
We undoubtedly learnt a lot, and not just about MOOCs. We admired the IIT-B team’s knowledge and teamwork. We now can appreciate why Prof Phatak received the Padmashree and why Prof Gaitonde is known as the ‘God of Thermodynamics’. Dr Sameer Sahasrabudhe definitely has more students enrolled in his course now and more followers of his blog. We were ready, even eager, for our ‘homework’.
Dr Kannan brought us Anantha flowers from her garden. That fragrance will linger as a memory of the wonderful time we had learning and enjoying ourselves for two whole days.
