IN PRAISE OF MOOCS: CENTRED ON THE COURSE IN ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM AT THE AZRIELI SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM, "HOW ARCHITECTURE CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE (OR NOT!)" IS THE STORY OF A MOOC-TO-COME

Apparently The New York Times dubbed 2012 'The Year of the MOOC.' MOOCs have since become hot potatoes one of the most well known is edX the MIT-Harvard collaboration. The scaremongering about these massive open online courses and the customized education programs they suggest began much earlier. However this scaremongering has led reasonably or not to a fear that the elite universities and rock star professors will produce an ivy league for the mass student audience. This is not certain. Of course if funding follows then such courses can literally move in and take over smaller less funded universities. According to the Carleton University President Roseann Runte "The campus experience will continue to be valued but will change. If students do a portion of their courses online universities will need to look to strengthening the role of teachers as mentors in the old Oxford style.... Classrooms will be more interactive while fewer of them will be required." This paper asks and speculates whether it is possible to turn the tables and work within this development when coming from a smaller university like Carleton? For example both 'history' and 'theory' in architectural education are now being re-assessed in many institutes for the multiple re-readings offered and the various narratives available. 1 When all this collides with social media and online technology it is also quite clear that even notions like history and theory are open to running redefinitions critical histories theory and criticality are themselves in flux. ARC1000 is an existing introductory first year open course on Architecture & Urbanism taught for the last four years by Professor James Vertigo (aka Professor Roger Connah) at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism Carleton University Ottawa. It has progressed from an interactive indexcard lecture course delivered to about 120 students to a performance-based set of lecture-events delivered very much like stand up comedy: on the run fast paced and often humorous. The students are studying mostly to become architects engineers art historians. In 3 hours it has to take on a lecture theatre full of smartphones iPads tablets pcs MacBooks and engage a wide variety of young students mostly 17 or 18 years old their very first university course. The scene -Fall 2014 -is now set for the larger format. The university according to the President is looking to increase sizes and income and respond to the economic climate. The MOOC may be one form of teaching to do this. Of course we say that as if it is easy. It is not. In spite of the exaggeration and the hype surrounding this extension of the open university model suggesting a fall off in student concentration and an increase in superficiality could MOOCs actually offer entirely new domains for study and re-configure an education process that is struggling? How for example could such a course be scaled up to take 300-400 students in a live situation whilst also available online for active participation anywhere in the world? For this purpose we will explore how the course could be re-named: "How Architecture Can Save your Life (or Not)." The interest in direct self-help thinking social media immediacy and cognitive thinking might be turned into an intensive set of. teddy-boy 'talks a humorous nod to ted talks. This paper will explore why and how this course might gain from becoming a MOOC in the following sections: 1 Closing the Architectural mind 2 Whistleblowing and the Periphery 3 Interminable Apprenticeship: Teaching is Learning 4 How Architecture can Save your Life (or not!) 5 From Geriatrica to Rock Star and Back Again.