Digital culture clash: “massive” education in the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC

While education has been both open and online, the sizeable enrolment numbers associated with massive open online courses (MOOCs) are somewhat unprecedented. In order to gauge the significance of education at scale, this article analyses specific examples of massive participation derived from E-learning and Digital Cultures, a MOOC from the University of Edinburgh in partnership with Coursera. Student-created content, user statistics, and survey data are illustrated to examine the experiences and repercussions of engaging with educational activity where participants number in the tens of thousands. This activity is shown to mirror established instructionist or constructivist approaches to pedagogy. However, rather than working with “massiveness,” these positions are suggested to oppose large participant numbers. Concluding remarks propose an irreducible diversity of participation, rather than a generalised categorisation of “student,” and call for future considerations of the MOOC to move beyond individualism and self-interest

GREEN ELECTROLUMINESCENT THIN FILMS By TAO FENG

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School Violence: Where Are the Interventions?

Globally, 1 billion children experience some form of physical, sexual, or emotional violence each year. Most of these children live in low-income and middle-income countries, and much of this violence occurs in and around schools. For the 90% of children who are enrolled in primary school, violence might be even more common in school than at home. About 60% of children aged 6–10 years report recent physical and emotional violence from peers at school, and 46–95% of primary school students experience corporal punishment from teachers, including in countries with legal prohibitions. According to a UNESCO report, sexual violence and harassment are also common, experienced by more than 10% of students in 96 countries. But some groups are at an even higher risk. In Uganda, for example, 20% of primary school girls aged 11–14 years with disabilities, but 10% of primary school girls of the same age without disabilities, reported sexual violence, mainly from peers but also from teachers