Several of the busted links I recently splinted together involved last year’s poetry and fiction MOOC’s from the University of Iowa. In tracking down those errant U of I pages — or at least the most recent placeholders — I ran across mention of this year’s free offerings.
Fortuitously, the 2015 version of How Writers Write Poetry just opened for registration on April 13th, after an initial delay. Registration will close on June 1st.
Having weathered an avalanche of entrepreneurial hyperbole about MOOC’s coming from Silicon Valley and its academic proxies, I think it is a good sign that the University of Iowa is continuing to make these courses available. The bottom line with any MOOC — as with anything else in life — is that you’re only going to get out of it what you put into it. For people in far-flung locations around the globe, however, having access to such experiences could be life changing.
— Mark Barrett