MSU students can learn about the Winter Olympics in free online course
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EmailMSU is allowing students to experience the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia in a whole new way by offering a free online course focused exclusively on the event.
Published: January 23, 2014
By: The State News
MSU is allowing students to experience the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia in a whole new way by offering a free online course focused exclusively on the event.
The five-week “massive open online course,” entitled “Mega Events: Inside The Winter Olympics,” will focus on major themes that come from the winter events including the cultural, societal and economic aspects of hosting the Olympics.
Class co-director Mark Wilson, also an urban and regional planning professor at MSU, said the idea was to keep the class timely with current events worldwide.
“We thought that it would be a great opportunity to teach an online class while something is happening,” Wilson said. “So while the Olympics are happening, to teach a class about the Olympics would be a really exciting teaching opportunity.”
The course is open to anyone at MSU. According to Wilson, students will engage in the class through videos and online content while also using social networking to interact.
“The class covers five themes, which are provided in video and online content,” Wilson said. “Essentially, we’ll be looking at the background of the Olympics, how a city prepares for the Olympics. We’ll be looking at the experience of athletes and spectators, and we’ll be talking about what happens when the Olympics is over and what happens with everything that is built and left for it.”
Wilson said there will be a social media project held during the opening ceremonies, where they will be asking people all over the world to tweet their comments and feedback on the opening of the Olympics.
Wilson will manage the course with urban and regional planning professor Eva Kassens-Noor and Lisa Robinson, the head of metadata management for MSU Libraries.
“We basically want to help students and people who are interested look beyond the surface of an Olympic games and trying to raise critical questions,” Kassens-Noor said. “Basically ones that share an experience with them.”
On Feb. 7, the class plans to have a live viewing of the opening ceremonies in McDonel Hall.
