{"product_id":"the-classroom-and-the-crowd-by-al-filreis-9780231221597","title":"The Classroom and the Crowd","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor more than a decade, Al Filreis has taught a free online course about experimental poetry, known as \"ModPo,\" that has drawn some 435,000 students from 179 countries. Online classes even a fraction of ModPo's size have been criticised as impersonal and unengaging. But the citizens of ModPo have formed a generous and enduring intellectual community as together they read poems typically dismissed as difficult and inaccessible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Classroom and the Crowd\u003c\/em\u003e, Filreis reflects on his decades of experience as a founder of participatory literary communities and teacher of online courses, demonstrating that student-centred education offers new possibilities for humane social networking. Introducing readers to ModPo participants and their open-ended, round-the-clock conversations, he shows how online learning can not only be accessible and educational but also deepen our commitment to democracy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFilreis argues that the emphasis on collaborative learning, space for discussion, and the inherent openness of poetry allows for a sense of community, continuity, and even intimacy that often eludes other online educational endeavours. ModPo embodies principles underlying both modern poetics and cooperative education: Writers and readers, like teachers and learners, create meaning together; many voices are clearer than one; and democracy is a creative practice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eProposing an optimistic vision of mass learning, this book contends that asynchronous education has surprising advantages over the traditional classroom, that panics about a crisis of attention and the death of reading are overblown—and that instead of logging off, we should all start reading with a crowd.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46871523131628,"sku":"9780231221597","price":68.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/8272673482270.jpg?v=1759883147","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/the-classroom-and-the-crowd-by-al-filreis-9780231221597","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}