Massive attracts...

I always remember seeing the Cerne Giant for the first time.

I can't have been older than 12 years old.

My parents took me to see it while on a caravan holiday in the South West.

"So, there it is, " my father called back to us kids on the back seat, behind.

"Er...." (embarassed silence)

"The er....Cerne Giant...." (coughing)

However hard you look at it, there is one feature which is too big to be ignored.

I am not of course talking about the giant's impressive baseball bat.

It is a remarkable thought that this ancient (though impossible to date accurately beyond the 17th century) turf-cut figure represents the American national sport so early on in Dorset.

Further research no doubt will be necessary.

If I am talking of a giant, it is because I had this blog title: "Massive attracts" hanging out impertinently from my Evernote 'blog title' list for future use.

No time like the present say I!

I am less afraid of exhibitionism since participating in Dave Cormier's Rhizomatic Learning Course.

That is obvious if you peek  at the promiscuous output of my blogging since 2014.

"Go on! I dare you!" say I cheekily.

"Put it away!" I hear you say, unimpressed.

I am afraid it is too late now.

I am being massively OPEN.

I am an educational naturist.

This is a full frontal confession.

So here is another confession:

I confess I have always been suspicious of the term: MASSIVE as used in MOOC's. I feel that it has attracted the wrong sort of attention.

I know that Dave Cormier termed it MASSIVE as a term to stress how MASSIVELY OPEN the first relatively confidential CONNECTIVIST (suspicious of that term) courses were....

It all sounds like a free-sex throwback to Woodstock. (but that would be in Oxfordshire...Er hum).

I shall forgive Dave Cormier for his annoying acronym.

He is a fine figure of an educator, for whom I have the utmost (coughs) respect.

While I am participating in Hybrid Pedagogy's #moocmooc, I just would like to distance myself from the idea that I might be attracted to it for the wrong reasons.

I have joyfully participated on and off now in four or five...er MOOCS.

#rhizo14
#clmooc
#ccourses
#ds106
#moocmooc

There is no doubt that the abundance of like-or even un-like minds is attractive.

I have to admit that I am most interested in the intimacy enabled by these MOOCS.

I have met a small group of fellow travellers.

I have been hustled and bustled in Twitter chats.
I have been wowed by fertile blog flows on giant blog hubs. (Awesome)

Frankly, I prefer an intimate picnic to a flashmob, a small market stall to the impersonality of a crowded shopping mall, a local bonfire to the MASSIVE municipal blaze-up for Guy Fawkes' night.

I am very happy to have come to MOOCs, or at least these sorts of MOOCs.

I can talk about them without embarrassment around the massive X (avert your gaze now).

I do think that there is a continuing obsession with SIZE as witnessed in LOG IN statistics.

We shall forgive Dave and crew for this.

We shall avert our eyes...

If you ever go to Cerne Abbas, you can think of me.

This nonsense will never attract a maddening crowd to Thomas Hardy's land.

I can sleep safely, my confidential readers.

There is nothing like being in the company of a few select friends and listening to the sound of sheep bleating on the Dorset hills.