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" In the world of '2001: A Space Odyssey', people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That's the essence of Kubrick's dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence."

A failure in e-learning? I don't think so. The noise was part of the rush of participation for me. I learned many things from it, not least how to manage the deluge of interactions amongst the participants. It's a similar feeling when you let go of your FOMO and realise you can't read every tweet.

I seem to have come across this post in my travels. I can understand how some just couldn't handle the multitude of platforms and available discussion forums. Teaching course participants to filter and choose or just realizing that you can't access everything is a good starting point. It's a shame that this person couldn't see the forest for the trees..because e-learning and digital cultures was a fabulous experience for me. I made so many wonderful connections, I learned so much from each of them. My learning and experiences in my first MOOC far outweigh any "noise" that may have accompanied that first week. I put a lot into the course, but the learning gained far exceeded my expectations.

Hi Chris! You voiced exactly my same feelings on edcmooc. Unlike you, I finished the course and even submitted my digital artifact and got my certificate. The only reason I didn't quit was because about midway on week 2, I decided to turn off the Google+ alerts, forgot about Facebook, and only rarely tweeted my impressions. I wrote three posts on my blog, only to remind myself of what I had seen or read. I totally agree with you that the noise was too intense for me. It got to a point where I just went to the Coursera site to check the assignments and that was it. I didn't exchange great ideas with anyone and was totally disheartened by the many platforms where we were supposed to interact. I also think that maybe I didn't totally understand what the course offered. I think I was expecting something a little bit more "practical" and was surprised by how much theory and philosophy was involved. Of course, I am not a teacher in the strict definition of the word, I've taught interpretation and translation but in a different context. I now am on week 3 of Internet History with Dr Chuck Severance and enjoying myself very much. People in the course are helpful, not overpowering and I guess the structure of the course itself is more suited to my learning style. Anyway, it was great to "meet" you! I always looked up to you because of the many things you created for the course, such as the Facebook group, the virtual classroom et al. Thank you!

The internet is not amazing, rather it "destroys political discourse, economic stability, the dignity of personhood and leads to "social catastrophe.". What do you think?

Thanks for this reference - very thoughtful and thought-provoking. Don't quite know what to 'do' with the information... a simple rubric could be to use the web the same way that Carl Rogers advises us to teach - with unconditional positive regard, congruence and empathy. Which is okay when you are still dealing with people - it gets so much complicated when we must perforce deal with or through impersonal monetised systems like Google or FaceBook.