Online course Advent of the Atomic bomb featured in Chronicle

Back to All Stories

Alumni young and old will once again be interacting with each other and with students through an online version of the popular Advent of the Atomic Bomb course taught by Associate Professor of Geology Karen Harpp.

The course was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education as an example of engaging alumni through online learning.

“Next semester [Karen Harpp] will offer the course for a second time as a MOOC of sorts for Colgate alumni. It is not, strictly speaking, a “massive open online course” because it is not open to the public—only to alumni and others who make special requests to join.”

Hosted on the ColgateX platform, the goal of the course is to have alumni connect with students and broaden the classroom dialogue. In the article, Harpp explains that she wanted to include alumni because “they provide a wide perspective from different ages and from different disciplines.”

Last year 380 alumni signed up for the course that included online discussions, a collaborative timeline, a wiki, a Twitter project re-enacting events in “real time,” and video conferences. Registration is still open for this year’s course.

Here is a video from last year’s class.

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5dq8Y8-wyY”]