Actors in a MOOC

Theatre Masks by biboarchitect
at clker.com

This week I participated in one of the most engaging online conversations I ever participated in (I have to admit, though, that I am only an average user of online courses).  Jeanette (The Online Teacher) submitted a post discussing her confusion due to a lack of clearly defined expectations in our MOOC.

As this, and other, discussions unfolded during Week 1, I believe we all began to "find our way" and community began to develop.  I am guessing this is exactly as Greg and the other facilitators had planned. I noticed community developed because specific individuals did some very deliberate things.  I began thinking that when I have my online course, I would ask individuals to volunteer to act in the following roles:

• Community Builder: makes connections between different posts
• Sergeant at Arms: creates order and structure (eg: adds a blog feed, creates a bookmark page, etc.)
• Interrogator: ask thought-provoking questions to stir discussion

Perhaps these roles can be rotated each week or month.  What do you think about assigning these roles? Can you think of other roles?