The Hong Kong Cinema Workbook- A MOOC Redesign Main Menu Week 1 Hello and Welcome! Week 2 King Hu and the Construction of Martial Arts Archetypes Week 3

A Live Performance!

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The HKU MOOC held a live event as a supplement for their online course to those locally in Hong Kong. It took place at an independent movie theater in Yau Ma Tei. Local participants could gather and meet their online classmates IRL. They also had the professors of the course give a live lecture and interact with the participants who were present. 

This live performance of the course is multifaceted in its potential. It fosters a local community that goes from online interactions to in-person local networks. The local event can also bring together online actors and the local non-online community. Although the event may be centered around the learners in the course, the setting of a local theater (which is housed in a public housing estate*) and its patrons integrates the online course with its local community. At the same time, it should be noted that in the last week of the MOOC, the edX based course advertises their undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Hong Kong. The course then serves also as a gateway to recruit students and brand the institution. The local event can be seen as a way to meet learners who are interested in furthering their education in the institution itself. This move towards marketing the university through the online course and its scoping of the local residents, however, does not take away from the fact that interaction between the local setting and with participants of the course is essential for fostering a learning community.    
*Estates in Hong Kong are administered by the government as forms affordable housing for low-income residents. They are a large source of housing for locals, and the majority of Hong Kongers live in these estates.