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Curanderismo added as MOOC by Chloe Henson
news@dailylobo.com @ChloeHenson5 After attracting more than 35,000 participants to its first course, UNM will continue to expand its Massive Open Online Course program, this time with a class on Curanderismo. The new MOOC will focus on Curanderismo, or traditional medicine of Mexico, Latin America and the Southwest, said Eliseo “Cheo” Torres, vice president and instructor for the online class. The course will be divided into modules that will address different traditional healing methods, such as body cupping, juice therapy, energetic cleansings, laugh therapy, shawl alignments and a traditional Mexican sweat lodge. “This may be the first MOOC class of its type,” he said. “A lot of people just want to discover their roots and their heritage, so this is one way to find out some of our ancestors’ medicine, that in some places have been lost and other places it hasn’t.” The MOOC will have several presenters from Mexico and New Mexico who will discuss the methods and effectiveness of the different healing techniques, Torres said. He teaches a summer class
and an online class in traditional medicine, which is how he found the speakers, he said. The production of the MOOC is almost finished, and the course could start as soon as August, Torres said. “The advantage I have is that I’ve already done this, but now I need to shorten this,” he said. “I don’t know how many people are going to register for it, but it’s self-paced.” Web Application Architectures, the first UNM MOOC, had 35,250 people from 184 countries signed up as of Tuesday afternoon, Greg Heilman, associate provost and class instructor, said. Heileman would have to teach his regular classes for about 1,000 years to teach that many students. “We’re always trying to give our student international engagement opportunities, well there’s one there,” he said. “Most of the students (enrolled in UNM’s MOOC) are not from the U.S.” MOOCs align with the way this generation of college students wants to learn material, Heileman said. He said it doesn’t replace professors; it reinforces what they teach in the classroom. “This is just technology advancing education,” he said.
thursday May 8, 2014
DIEIN AROUND
William Aranda / Daily Lobo The student movement, OurUNM, staged a die-in Wednesday in front of Zimmerman Library. The participants outlined students’ bodies in chalk and wrote individual messages protesting various University policies, Matthew Barceleau, a law student, said the diein helps spread awareness for students who may not be familiar with #OurUNM. Ross Linderman, a senior linguistics and Spanish major, said the die-in seemed a little odd and that he would not participate. “I think not,” he said. “I’m wearing a nice shirt.” by Erika Eddy One of the advantages of the MOOC is that high-performing students can usually help other learners online, which promotes peer-to-peer learning, Heileman said. “That has to happen if you’re dealing with 30,000 or 40,000,”
he said. “This is a typical thing, if they’re having problems getting something installed, these people answer their problems and it works out.” While Heileman was initially surprised at his MOOC’s participation rate, having 30,000
participants in a course is not unusual, he said. “This is not abnormal, there’re going to be other MOOCs at UNM that have this many (students) or more,” he said. “It’s just how they are; they attract huge audiences.”
Global Education Office to increase international presence by Zach Pavlik
assistant-news@dailylobo.com @zachpavlik Faced with the task of increasing University study abroad participation by 33 percent in six years, the
new Interim Director of the Global Education Office, Paul Edmunds, has his work cut out for him. GEO aims to triple the number of students leaving for study abroad programs and increase the number of international students coming to
the University, Edmunds said. He said the department will focus on undergraduates. President Robert Frank has required each University department to produce a strategic plan that highlights
William Aranda / Daily Lobo Paul Edmunds, the new interim director for the Global Education Office, checks his email in his office on Wednesday morning. Edmunds has been interim director of the GEO for about one month.
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where it will be by 2020, he said. Danielle Gillian, the administrative officer of GEO, said her job was created in part to handle this new growth. She said the GEO has assumed new responsibilities, which include hiring people who focus on finance, recruiting its own IT staff and acquiring individuals who focus on marketing, Gillian said. GEO intends to meet and exceed Frank’s UNM 2020 goal of increasing international programming by 20 percent by 2015, she said. The GEO is on track and moving in the right direction, she said. According to the GEO’s website, the international population at UNM has grown 5.73 percent since last year, and had grown by 3.63 percent the year before that. Eighty-nine countries are represented at the University. Greater recognition and participation in study abroad programs are also 2020 goals for the University at large, Frank said in a statement. International student presence promotes growth at UNM, he said. “We all benefit from either studying abroad or having international students studying here with us. It enhances our already rich diversity of people, ideas and programs,” he said. Edmunds said a challenge he experienced as interim director is increasing awareness of the Global Education Office. He said the University has a rich story to tell and once this
message gets out an influx of foreign students is bound to follow. “We need to find a way to tell our story. We need to really find a way to put New Mexico on the map, just to begin with, and particularly the University of New Mexico,” said Edmunds. During his undergraduate time at the University of Minnesota, Edmunds studied abroad in Venezuela for a semester, he said. The experience partly inspired him to better the University’s study abroad programs. “It was an absolutely fantastic experience and it really just changed my entire perspective on life and the world,” said Edmunds. “It’s a transformative experience that really affects almost everyone who goes on study abroad. So I really do endorse those programs.” One of the great aspects of study abroad is it brings an international presence to all students, even those who are not planning on participating in the program, Edmunds said. “When we’re bringing in students from around the world to be on our campus, it internationalizes the campus,” Edmunds said, “And, even for the student who might not have the possibility, for whatever reason, to do a study abroad, they can be in contact with international people on campus without leaving home.”
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