“One of the most entertaining shoots I’ve done at Ohio State,” is how Scott Sprague, E-Media Producer at the College of Arts and Sciences Technology Services, describes filming “Latino Popular Culture for the Clueless: All Your Questions Answered in Seven Exciting Episodes” a project headed by Ohio State Professors Frederick Aldama (English and Spanish & Portuguese) and Paloma Martinez-Cruz (Spanish & Portuguese).

“Latino Popular Culture for the Clueless” is a MOOC (massively open online course), much like those created by Ohio State Arts and Science instructors James Fowler (MOOCulus) and Kay Halasek (WExMOOC). The Latino Popular Culture for the Clueless MOOC covers a wide range of Latino issues: historical, social, socioeconomic, demographic, and regional.

It’s “Latino studies in 7 fun modules,” says Aldama, and it responds to the tremendous growth in the Latino population in the United States, where they are now the largest minority. With “50 million-plus Latinos in the US and possibly another 12 million undocumented,” Aldama felt that potential students for the MOOC may be “looking around [at the increase in Latino population] and saying ‘Hey, this is different. It wasn’t like this 10 years ago.’”

Not only has the population changed, but so has the method of instruction. MOOCs are experimental online learning areas, into which Martinez-Cruz feels “we’re coming in asking more questions than we have answers.” 

"There is a generational skepticism about online courses in the humanities,” says Martinez-Cruz. "Skepticism about removing the contact time between instructors and students and the removal of a live learning experience. Academics wonder 'How can we engage critical thinking when we can’t directly ask them questions in person and real time?'" These areas are all under study with the MOOC. As Martinez-Cruz explains, "we want to evoke cricital thinking, so our approach is very creative. We didn’t want the MOOC to be two people talking--a 'talking heads' info dump--but to create a sense of community by showing them the outlook Dr. Aldama and I have. So I created a character called Lady Olmec, who is an illegal alien. Her character expodes stereotypes of what illegal aliens are in the US, to show what’s ridiculous about these stereotypes."

The MOOC will give students across the globe a scholarly but entertaining way to learn about this population. “Popular shows like Modern Family and its character Manny as the smartest, wittiest kid on primetime TV [are] turning Latino stereotypes on their heads,” says Aldama, who sees now as the perfect time for this project.

ASCTech was instrumental in making this project work for Aldama. From making sure “that the actual filming is done the right way to making sure that Paloma and I had a clear sense of the whole project, there’s been a ton of work from Abhijit (Varde, Center for Language, Literature & Culture), Scott (ASCTech), Mike (Kaylor, ASCTech) and Tom Evans (ODEE).” Aldama had particular praise for Sprague’s work: “Scott is amazing; doing all the technical aspects, setting up shots, making sure it’s framed right, and then cutting and editing it in post-production.“

Aldama sees a bright future for this form of education: “This is just the beginning. I want a portal for different MOOCs that deal with particular areas, like Latinos in the NFL or Latinos and Gender. This is just the first one of many that I envision that OSU will be known for and that we will continue to grow and populate with more and more course content.”

The “Latino Popular Culture for the Clueless: All Your Questions Answered in Seven Exciting Episodes” MOOC launches on Coursera in autumn 2104. Check back to coursera.com around that time for information about joining this course.