I'm going to go ahead and start. All right, so we are live. And I just want to say welcome to the Introduction to the Perspective. This is going to be a very fun journey. And I think it's going to be very impactful. And this, in some respects is going to be somewhat historic too. because to my knowledge, and to the knowledge of the people who are setting this course up. There's never been three universities that have come together in a collaborative course like this. That was also being put out to the world through a MOOC. And so this is the first time this is happening. And you're all a part of that. And it's really, really exciting. So, as we go through this discussion. And these ground rules kind of apply to all of our live sessions that we're going to have. We're going to have six in total. This is a two-way discussion. This is not a lecture. The course content that you get, the lectures if you will, are all online. What these is, is to kind of dive deep and answer your questions. And hear your thoughts and your opinions on the topics and the principles that we're going to talk about. So at any point there in this thing. Feel free to jump in. If you could, just state where you're coming from. When you're not talking if you could mute. That would be really helpful as well. So like I said this is a historic moment. And maybe just to take a moment and talk about the purpose of this course. And why I wanted to teach this course. And why I think this course is so important. One of the main reasons for this course is right now in the world. There are about 20 million organizations that are working to improve life on earth. Environmental efforts, social efforts, etc. And that's a really good thing. That there's so much interest in making a difference. There's so many people in the world that want to improve life on our planet. Want to improve the systems of our planet. That they accomplish millions and millions of organizations. All made up of individual people. That's the good news. The bad news is for the most part these organizations are not working in a unified, coordinated effort. There's a tremendous lack of efficiency. There's tremendous duplication of effort. And there's a tremendous loss of the good that these organizations could be doing. If they simply unify their efforts. And work together towards common goals. And so in this course, we're going to talk a lot about that. We're going to talk a lot about some of the disincentives to progress. That a lot of these organizations have to overcome. And most of that is cultural. And so what we want to do through this course is, there is a shining example of international cooperation. And it's the International Space Station. And so we want to take that collaboration that built and sustains the International Space Station. And bring it down to earth. And put in the context of our hyper-interconnected, rapidly developing society. One of the things to think about is that the International Space Station is arguably one of the most complicated, complex structures ever built. And to think that it was built in space by 15 different nations really serves as an example. Especially since a lot of these nations weren't always the best of friends. They were on opposite sides of the Cold War. Opposite sides of the space race. But somehow they found a way to set aside their differences. And do this amazing thing in space. And we have a lot of seemingly intractable problems on our planet. Problems that seem impossible to solve. And I believe that if we simply were able to find ways to set aside our differences. Unify and coordinate our actions. That we would have a lot less problems on our planet. Another reason for this course. It sort of serves as an antidote or a counter for our present climate. Our present climate is basically one of advancing hyper nationalism, parochialism, tribalism. We have divided into tribes. We've divided into camps. And that crosses all types of borders. There's political barriers. There's cultural barriers. There's national barriers. And all of these things serve as an impediment to progress. Serve as an impediment to the problem solving process. And so we, through this course, want to zoom out. We want to zoom out to a bigger picture. We want to zoom out to a picture where all of these differences blur into insignificance. They don't disappear. They don't cease to exist. They just lose their importance. So they seem very, very trivial. And when you zoom out to that perspective. And all that other stuff vanishes and moves out of your frame of reference, moves out of your perspective. What's left are all the pieces of the puzzle. And when you can see where they fit together, who has them, and what picture they paint for our global society. And so, that is kind of the purpose of the course. And the course itself is structured collaboratively. We have three universities right now. And in a few weeks we're going to be joined by people who are coming in through the MOOC. So hopefully there will be people from all over the world. That are coming in to participate in the course as well. And so there is a lot of opportunity built into the course to collaborate. And not just collaborate with folks at your own university. But collaborate with other people. And I hope that everybody takes advantage of that. And so before I go any further. I just want to stop and see if there's any points of discussion. Or if anybody has any questions or anything to add? >> Actually I think it was a very eye-opening experience to read that first chapter of your book. And one quote in particular stood out to me. As far as participation across nations. And it was this quote that said, we are one, we are human. And I thought that was very powerful. And if I may make the kind of connection. That I just finished watching Star Trek Next Generation. I know it's a little bit of an aside. But I get this kind of Gene Roddenberry-type vision of the future where we all work together towards this common goal. And in looking at the stars, hopefully we can look at each other. And see other more as friends as opposed to enemies. >> Exactly, yeah. And the main project, if you will, of this course is to get involved with something called Constellation. Or the Earthrise 2068 project, to envision this future. Now if you look at science fiction. Most of science fiction paints an apocalyptic future, right? You know, most of these films do that, or books. But if you look at Star Trek, for instance. And that's the future that we want to go towards. A future where we've evolved to the point where we've set aside our petty differences. And we're able to do amazing things together. So I was going to segway into a discussion of Constellation at this point. But I just want to make sure that nobody has anything they want to add or say. >> Hey, professor can you hear me? [LAUGH] I can't >> All right, sorry I had some audio issues at the beginning. Now just on a lighter note, I was curious what we should call you since we're going to have to sort of establish the culture. >> Okay, well, everybody can call me Ron, except for you Andrew. I'd like you to call me Professor. >> [LAUGH] All right Professor, [INAUDIBLE] >> So you're off to a good start. >> Yeah, sure. >> All right, so let's talk about constellation. And I think we've been kind of hinting at what this is, but what we're doing is we are bringing together a coalition of international astronauts from all around the world. And we're doing this to offer an alternative narrative. To offer an alternative vision of our future. One that's not apocalyptic. One that's hopeful and positive and possible. And the reason why we're doing this is because of what we can see. We can see a future where all people are lifted out of poverty. We can see a future where we have complete control of all the chemical constituents of the Earth's land, of oceans, of the atmosphere and thereby can control the thermostat of our planet, that can control climate. We see a future where nations and organizations of people set aside their differences and work together. And we can see all these things and much, much more because of what we have seen. Because when we looked back at our planet space, what became very, very clear is that we, all of us, are riding through the universe together on this spaceship that we call Earth. And when you look at the International Space Station, there's not the American crew or the Russian crew or the Japanese crew, there's just a crew. And the crew operates in a very unified manner. And the reason why we do it so well is because our life depends on it. We literally put our lives in each other's hands. And if there is a major event like a fire and if you haven't already read about it, there's some examples in the book of a fire and a depressurization, where the crew had to basically work together to save their own lives. But if you look at the trajectory that our planet's on, you can make the argument that we need to collaborate to save our lives. We need to collaborate to save our species and the other species with whom we are entrusted to as stewards of the planet. And so we're bringing this coalition of astronauts to provide that context, to provide that perspective. And what we want to do is we want to have these international astronauts from all around the world serve as the core group of this coalition. And, in addition to that core group, we want to have visionaries, and futurists, and scientists, and students, and pretty much anybody who wants to make a difference in the world. And to basically help us build and design a vision of the future and a roadmap to get there. And so we have a number of milestones along the way. For the next year, we're going to be bringing this coalition together. We haven't gone public yet but our plan is to go public this September. And we are going to do that through a UN general assembly presentation, where we're going to bring probably 12 international astronauts, and we are going to basically present a manifesto. And that manifesto is what this vision of our future can be, how we can get there. And it's really a message of hope and it's a message of profound collaboration, based on the profound collaboration that we have seen in the space program. So that's September of 2017, and this whole story is the being framed as a 100-year journey through space. And I'm sure you've watched the first video, where we talked about Earth Rise. So the 100-year journey through space started on December 24th 1968 and it will take us to 2068. And we need to make a bunch of course corrections. And a course correction on a space mission is you figure out where you are. You figure out where you want to be and you figure out what you need to change to put your trajectory to intercept the point that you want to get to. And one of the most important of those course corrections is the mid-course correction. So we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of Earth Rise in 2018. So in 2018, we want to have a series of massive events all around the world that are basically going to serve as a course correction to our planetary society. And one of the things that I think is obvious when you really look at this is the vision of our world that was provided to us on December 24th, 1968 when the crew of Apollo 8 took that famous photo of the Earth Rise. The meaning of that photo and what it represented and what it meant was that we are one people traveling on one planet towards one common future. And we've never really caught up with the significance and the meaning of that message. And so in 2018, this massive course correction will hopefully help us catch up to what that means and all that in tells, which is working together as a single species and working together towards our common goals, setting aside our differences. And it all sound nice and warm and fuzzy and there's a lot of platitudes in there. But it's actually doable, I mean we've proven that we can do this. And so that's 2018 and what that's going to look like, we don't exactly know. But what we envision is a series of simultaneous summits all around the world, where these are called action summits, where we're not coming together to have a conference to talk about things. We're coming together to do things, to design what this future will look like, to design the road map to get to the destination, to steer our trajectory to the destination we want to be at. One of the big factors and one of the big limitations that prevents us from solving a lot of the problems that we face is our inability to share data. Even in a crisis situation, it's very hard to convince organizations that are supposed to be working together to provide tents or clean water or whatever they're trying to do in response to a natural disaster had difficulty sharing data. And so part of these summits will be Hack-a-Thons, where the theme of the Hack-a-Thon is to build systems that are unified, right? Build ways to connect databases, build ways to have different discrete organizations start to take a more collaborative role with each other. And so that's a purpose there. All of this is being captured by a full-length feature documentary. And, at the moment, it's called Orbital. And that's documenting the convening of constellation. And so this course that you're taking is not a course where you're just going to read stuff in a book and [LAUGH] regurgitate that on the test. This is an action course, right? This is a course where we want you to help us. Design and build this future, and so one of the first assignments if you will is to envision what the world should look like in the year 2068. And I don't mean what technology might we have in 2068, but what principles do we as a species want to be operating in the year 2068. What's the basic operating system of our society in that year? Yeah so, I'm going to stop here for a second and I want to see if anybody has any ideas along that way. And the assignment for this log session, and voice spread is to put your ideas of what you think the future should look like. And the way I would like you to phrase it, is I want you to provide an overarching principle. That you think is really important and that you should be able to add a sentence or two. And the sentence is a really important part. I don't want you to go do a bunch of research and figure it out, I just want to let you think. I want to know what your opinion is of what a principle is that we should be living under in the year 2068. Or that we should be moving towards now, so that by the year 2068 we could potentially be operating under this principle. Please also as you're doing that give us some examples of how we can potentially get there. How we can achieve the accomplishment of that principle and then why is it so important? If we were to achieve this principle, what would that mean to the world and why is it so important to you? And I'll give you an example and it should be in the courseware. But let's say that you want to get rid of world hunger by the year 2068. And a way to phrase that in the context of principle, is along the lines of, in the year 2068, it should be unacceptable that any person does not have access to the nutrition they need to reach their full potential. So you've kind of scoped it a little bit and you've kind of said that this is a basic human right, if you will. It's a basic human right that everybody has enough nutrition that their brains can, for children it's really important that their brains develop properly, etc, etc. And the way to think about this, when you zoom out to the big picture, when you zoom out to the overall perspective. Is if a person is provided all the nutrients that they need to reach their full potential, that's not only good for them, that's good for us too. because who knows what that fully functioning brain will be able to invent and design and do, that's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is that person will be much more self-sufficient and will need a lot less from the rest of us. So a lot of these things are both beneficial on an individual level and beneficial on a societal level which means that they're worthwhile for investment. So I'll stop there and see if anybody wants to throw us some ideas along those lines. And just to let you know, I don't know if this is clear or not, but this is a 60 minute live session. So we'll be finishing up prior to the hour. >> I'll go ahead and be brave and jump in here. >> Sure. >> So, I'm thinking about year the 2068, no one should be afraid to think with an open mind. Because I think that keeping an open mind to the different possibilities that lay before us. And that's kind of overarching I know, but I think with unopen mind, it's impossible to progress as a species. >> So, how would you phrase that as a principle? because how does that manifest? An open mind, I mean you can think about whatever you want. So is it so much of an open mind or is it the ability to speak your mind? >> As a historian it's easy to see how tradition and things like that can be important to somebody but I think, at the same time, people need to be willing to change is what I'd say as a principle. >> So how could you phrase that in a way that could be enacted upon and tangible? >> And I'm not trying to pick on you, but I'm trying to show everybody the thought process that we should go through as we're going over these principles. Because they need to be something that we can enact. They need to be something that we can design a roadmap to get to. They need to be something that we can define whether we've got there or not. So, having an open mind, I think, the way it's phrased right now would be difficult to know when you've arrived at that point. >> Right. I think I may need to think on that, but thank you Bob. >> Yeah, you bet, you bet. So, okay, [LAUGH], you guys just jump in because I can't keep up with the hand raising. And I just actually figured out why I keep getting these messages that say somebody lowered their hand so [LAUGH] yeah just jump in. So which means just turn your mic and your camera and- >> Hi, this is Neil, so my principle statement I guess would be, in the year 2068, the production of all energy on earth should be through reliable, sustainable and environmentally friendly means. So that could mean using, improving renewable energy technology such as wind and solar energy. >> Yep, that sounds good, and you could even scope it larger than that because what is energy? Energy is the fuel of our economy, right? So you could almost say by the year 2068, that all of the inputs, all of the resources of our economy to ensure that our economy continues to grow. To ensure that we can meet all the basic needs of human society, are done in a way that do not cause harm to people, the planet, or any of the species that we share the planet with, right? So that's just an example of a broader principle, which I think it's pretty obvious, that we got there. Because if you're harming somebody, or you're harming the environment or you're harming species on the environment, you know you haven't gotten there yet. It would be a pretty easy way, I can envision a road map to get there. The same with 100% of the energy needs to come from renewable sources. I think it might be beneficial to maybe dive a little deep into what you mean by renewable. Because if you're creating all these solar panels and creating all kinds of environmental destruction through the manufacturing of the solar panels, that defeats the purpose, right? So even though you're creating renewal energy, you might not be preventing harm through the process. So we need to make sure that we keep a really, really big picture what we're trying to accomplish and And that set the bounds too narrow, I guess. >> I'll refine that then. >> Super. Hey, just to mention, I'm coming to you from Tuscon, Arizona. I am sitting at the headquarters of World view. World View is a high altitude group company where we're going to take people and experiments and research and communications and Earth observation platforms to space. And I am sitting in the cannon and pane room. That's why you see the star pictures behind me of two wonderful astronomers. Each of our briefing rooms here has a different theme, and this one happens to be on these two women who helped with the modern star charts, and we owe them a great deal of gratitude and admiration. So this is also the location of Spaceport Tucson, and it's an exciting place to be. So I just thought I'd fill you in. [LAUGH] Put that as some background information, so. Anybody, yeah. >> Yeah. >> I'm ready. >> I wrote down just a platform for innovation available to everyone by 2068. I think now we're doing things that are great, open sourcing software, making data sets available to people. Mark Zuckerberg, he just flew the, what was that drone with the Internet. I can't remember what the name was of the drone. But giving internet to everybody, and giving everyone sort of a universal open platform to innovate and be innovative, I think is really important. And I think should be a principle when we get ino 2068. >> Yeah. So maybe Brittany, just to piggyback on that a little bit because maybe this is a good example for the part for why? Why is this is so important? I travel all around the world and I tell this story everywhere I go because I think it's a really important story to tell, that we all need to come together and work towards these shared problems. And when I talk about the Internet, I agree with you. I think as soon as possible, certainly by the year 2068, it should be a basic human right that you're connected to the Internet. And that's not so you can shop on eBay or whatever. [LAUGH] >> Yeah. >> I mean there is a reason for that. And when you zoom out to the orbital perspective, and you're going to hear this over and over again. When you zoom out at the big picture, when you look, and what I mean by that, zooming out to the orbital perspective. I mean when you zoom out to a big picture perspective that takes into account the whole planet, and you zoom out temporally into a very very long time frame, a lot of things become clear and a lot of things make sense. And when you zoom out to the orbital perspective, you see that the Internet has become the nerve center of spaceship Earth, right? It provides the capability for us to align these discrete points of creativity and innovation into combined action. And what I like to say, because I really believe it, is when we connect the five billion creative problem-solving minds to the Internet who are not part of the global conversation at the moment because they're not connected to the Internet. When we connect them to that global conversation, we are going to find solutions we never dreamed of coming from places we've never heard of. And I think that should be a pretty big why there. The why is because we want [LAUGH]. Different people have different pieces of the puzzle. Different people have different approaches to the solutions that we all face, and we need to hear those voices or we're not going to get to that point. >> Yeah, absolutely, I agree. >> Cool. All right, so just one other thing to talk about and we kind of hit on this a little bit, is this is more than a class. I want you all [LAUGH] to be part of this movement. This is a movement of people that believe that we can craft a positive future. This is a movement of people that think that we can rise above the hyper-nationalism, the parochialism, the tribalism that we are seeing all around the world. This is a group of people that believe that by breaking down cultural and technical and physical boundaries and borders to collaboration, that it's going to be in everybody's best interests. So feel free to be involved any way that you feel that you can. We have social media page. If you're posting stuff in the course structure, if you feel comfortable, post it on the Facebook page. We've got a Twitter site, we've got a Facebook site. If you want to help moderate those sites, if you want to help be an admin on those sites, anything that you want to do, just feel free to chime in and start doing. And I think together, as this thing grows, I hope that this is not just a course that you take and you get your credit and you move on. I hope that this is something that you continue on for a long time in the future because I think it can be, I believe it will be very, very rewarding because it has a lot of purpose to it All right, anybody have any other ideas for principles? All right. So there's a couple of other, I'm sorry, did somebody have something? Izan, did you want to say something? >> Are you able to hear me? >> Yes. >> Yes, I just want to because I want to add something to it. Although I dont have a constructive principle, I think is anybody aiming to work in NASA or just any research company, I think travelling to another planet or colonizing something, space is the ultimate goal. I think with this rapid increase in the population, that is something that we should be in for. I'm not sure about that in a principle, but that's what. >> Okay and I don't know who's speaking. >> Izon. >> Izon, okay, okay. >> Yes. >> So I agree with you. I think that one of the goals of humanity should be to reach out and to start to settle different parts of the solar system and beyond. But I think we need to do it the right way. And what I mean by that is we can't see that as the key to our survival because we've used up this planet. So in one of the following lessons, we're going to talk about the Pale Blue Dot, and we're going to talk about Carl Sagan and Carl Sagan's, Basically his attitude and his belief that, for the foreseeable moment, the Earth is where we make our stand, right. There's nowhere else, as of yet, that we can go and we can settle. And one of the big things that I hear is that we're going to go terraform Mars, and we're going to start a human colony on Mars with this [LAUGH] terrafomed planet. That doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't make any sense to me because if we can't even control the climate of our own planet, how do we think we're going to terraform another planet? And so if the idea is, this planet is going to get used up because we've Ruined it and we're going to move on tomorrow as in, that doesn't make sense. What does make sense is that our technology evolves to the point, our society evolves to the point where we can control the chemical constituents of nearest land oceans and atmosphere, and we can control the climate. And then maybe in the future we could start to think about terraforming another planet, but it won't be because we destroyed this one. And will be because it's just a natural evolution to migrate out into, 200,000 years ago, all of our descendents lived in the same part of Africa. And from there we migrated to every ecosystem on the planet. And then we eventually migrated into space. And that migration should continue for a number of reasons, one is single planet species tend not to survive. Just ask the dinosaurs. If we had a massive event happen, a super volcano or some type of naturals. It's conceivable that we could have an extinction event, and it would be beneficial. [LAUGH] Not all our eggs in one basket as it is, so I hope that all made sense that I agree with you, but we can't abandon the Earth in the process, it's basically the bottom line. Cool, so there's two other discussion points that we wanted to get to. And the first one is, why do you think that NASA and the Russian Space Agency agreed to work together during periods when those two countries had many disagreements? And back, just to let you know, back when the US was considering allowing the Russians into the International Space Station partnership, there was an incredible amount of push back, there's an incredible amount of political bickering. And the usual story was we disagree with them with this, we disagree with them and that. We have all these things that we disagree with. So we should not agree to work with them in space until we overcome these differences and they stop doing this or that that we don't like that they're doing. So, how do you think we were able to overcome that and what do you think of the outcome? [COUGH] So, Jake, if you lowered your hand estimate, you had your hand up at one point. [LAUGH] >> I'm going to go ahead and be brave again, and say that it was a matter of perspective that perhaps the Russians had technologies and perspectives of space exploration that the United States didn't have and vice versa. The United States had technologies and perspectives that the Soviets didn't have. So, I think that by reaching out across the Iron Curtain, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to come together and make something that seemed impossible, especially for the time period very possible. >> Yeah, so I think everything you said is true, but I don't think they realized it was true at the time. So, I think the catalyst to bring them together was political. We talk about it in the book, where there was a huge concern as the Soviet Union was disintegrating that intercontinental ballistic missile technology would be exported to countries that wanted to do the US harm. And if you had all these unemployed Russian rocket scientists then that would happen. So it was a way to keep them gainfully employed if you will, in peaceful activities. But after the two sides came together and started working together over a long period of time, they did eventually start to realize what you brought up. That there are two different perspectives, and that those two perspectives were very complimentary. And a lot of people in the US looked at the partnership as the US saving the Russian's program. When in reality it was, both programs were saving each other because we did not have the funding that was going to be necessary for the Freedom Space Station. And certainly after the Colombia mishap, we would not have been able to keep the space station going if it wasn't for the Russians. So, it was a very fortuitous thing that we did for our partnership together. All right, and we're starting to get close on time. So I'll get down to the other question is, what lessons can we learn from the ISS partnership that can be applied to problem solving on the Earth? So the ISS partnership, I think, brings out. >> Did you guys want to continue the conversation or should we wait? [INAUDIBLE] >> I don't know what the ISS is. Was he starting to explain that, or- >> International Space Station is what the abbreviation stands for. >> Okay, got it. Got it. >> Yeah, I'm still working to reach Ron right now. So if you guys can continue the conversation, that's great. This is being recorded. So at the very least even if you can't get back in he'll be able to see this. And then get back and follow up with you. And at the least, record your participation. So yeah, that would be great if you can continue and I'll keep working on my end. Thanks a lot. >> Actually, Mr. Morris, I have a question. [INAUDIBLE] [NOISE] >> [INAUDIBLE] again. [LAUGH] And go ahead and answer what I think was the last question Ron asked. Which was, what lessons can we learn from the ISS that can be applied to Earth? And I'm going to go out on a limb here. And say that in space there aren't any borders whereas here, on planet Earth, we do make them. I mean, even here in the United States we have borders between states. And different laws and regulations that dictate human action just based on these sociopolitical ideas. And I think if the ISS taught us anything, it's that we can accomplish a lot of things without borders. I'm going to use the European Union as an example. I mean, they have pretty free borders and they seem to working together pretty well. And I dare say that if we can get rid of political boundaries, we can accomplish a lot more than what we are right now. >> Yeah I think that's a pretty good point. One of the things that we can learn, I think, from the ISS is we don't have to do it all. As the United States, we do a lot of things. We try to do everything for every country and everybody. But we don't have to. We can use other countries to do things. Get different things and different sciences from different places and different everything from other places. We don't just have to do it all alone. There are other people that can do things like this. There are some countries that can't but we need to bring them into the fold. So that there's something that they can do to help us in some way or another. >> Hey guys, I'm back. I apologize. We had our internet go down here. [LAUGH] And the call in didn't work. So I'm on my personal hotspot here. And I just got finished talking for about ten minutes to probably nobody [LAUGH]. So it was profound. So what did I miss? What are you guys talking about? >> We started just kind of seeing your question on what the ISS could teach us. I said that if it taught us anything, it's that without borders, which we've kind of created here on Earth, we could accomplish a lot. >> Awesome, good point. Okay, so we're approaching the end of this session, and I want to respect everybody's time. All right, so thanks for the link, Jake. So are there any, I guess, parting shots. Anything that anybody wants to bring up as we move forward? So we've launched on this journey, we've launched on this adventure. I hope it's very rewarding for you. And it's exciting because it's something new. These three different universities and the public getting together once the MOOC launches. And hopefully it's going to be a lot of fun as well as something that's really, really important. So does anybody have any kind of closing thoughts? >> I was actually just curious, I see that Drexel and University of Arizona are here. But what's the third university that's participating? >> It's the University of Florida. And I guess they were working on some technical issues and I guess they didn't work it out in time. We were hoping that they would be able to jump on this class or this session. They are having the class. And so yes, at the moment, it's the University of Florida, it's Drexel, and it's the University of Arizona. >> Okay. >> Cool. [LAUGH] All right, kind of going off is that same question. I wanted to ask what MOOC was, for my research. I think you meant massive open online course? >> Yes, exactly. So this course is going to be open to the public to take. It's not going to be exactly the same but it's going to be pretty close. And Chris, do you have anything to add from a technical or an administrative view or- >> I think that's the only ones we have that are on there. >> I guess just more about the MOOC, in case you weren't familiar with that. One of the biggest MOOC providers is Coursera, which was started by a professor at Stanford. And so that's the system that this course is going to be offered on as a MOOC. And essentially it's the same in terms of the content. But the difference is the MOOC students aren't going to be participating in these live sessions. And they're not going to be participating in the voice thread. They'll have their own way to participate in discussions that way. They will however be viewing the archives of these sessions. So you're actually generating a lot of the content and ideas that sort of stimulate the students in the MOOC. So you're kind of acting yourselves as if not the professors. Then the performers for a lot of the content that's being generated for that. >> And so you bring out a good point. Because if you just make your comments in voice thread. And I think, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong. But all three universities will see the voice thread comments, right? >> Correct, yeah. All of the students should be in the same space for the voice thread. So you're probably used to online courses with the discussion boards, just talking with your class. But this will be a joint sort of format for everybody. >> And then, for Blackboard Learn for the Drexel students. If you're in Blackboard Learn, only the Drexel students will see. So that's why everything should be in voice thread. But if you copy and paste or you engage in the Facebook page, then everybody on the MOOC will see that too. So your ideas will reach more minds if you're able to post them on the Facebook page as well. And the Facebook page just launched. It's hopefully going to evolve and grow over time, so cool. All right, well I'm going to start winding this thing down. It's been a lot of fun on this first session. I think as we get deeper and deeper into this thing, and we get more involved. And you guys have the time to really sit down and think about these principles and what the future could look like. And how do we get there and why that's important. And we start to share that on voice thread and start to share that on the Facebook page. And we start to get in to a dialogue and a conversation around these things. I think the conversation is going to get richer and richer. And it's going to become more fruitful and more impactful and more important. And if you have questions along the way please put them in voice thread so everybody can benefit from it. If they're technical then reach out to the TAs and, yeah. And this is a course in evolution, right? And so, if you see things that can be changed to make this better for next time. Or certainly better for the MOOC when it launches, then please let us know. Because we want to make this the best it can possibly be. Cool. All right, all right, well we'll close for this time. What's your daughter's name [INAUDIBLE]? >> It's Cecilia. >> Cecilia? All right, so she's an honorary class member. How's that? [LAUGH] >> She's happy. >> All right, all right. Okay guys, I'm going to stop the recording now and shut it down. Have a great evening and looking forward to speaking with you next week. >> Good night Ron. >> Bye, thanks. >> All the best, cheers. Thank you. >> [LAUGH] >> Hopefully did it
