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The views and opinions expressed in our blog series are those of the authors and are not necessarily supported by CareSearch, Flinders University and/or the Australian Government Department of Health.
The first week of the CareSearch MOOC Dying2Learn is about engaging with Death and Dying. The MOOC will introduce different concepts and prompt the reader to think about things that they had not previously considered or had not wanted to think about at the time. Some of this can be confronting, so we start off by exploring the constructs of death through humour. Our main message at the beginning of the MOOC is – don’t take this too seriously. Have a good laugh and get the conversations started in a safe place. So, for example I have linked to the Dying Matters website (UK) ‘Dying for a Laugh’ where comedians reflect and ultimately consider their own deaths, hoping that their involvement will encourage others to talk more openly and more often about death and other end of life issues.
I am excited to be part of a project team at CareSearch that are developing a ‘massive open online course’ (MOOC) on death and dying. MOOCs are freely-available short online courses that anyone can participate in. Traditionally they have been used in universities to deliver education out of the classroom, but there has been a surge in their popularity in that they can be used to not only create social networks and engage participants, but impart important messages, provide resources, and facilitate research opportunities. The aim of our MOOC is to build community awareness of palliative care and death as a normal process, and our approach to the MOOC will be in a socio-cultural context (rather than a palliative care context); so for example, the social rather than biological death as seen in dementia. The MOOC will provide a never-before-seen opportunity to watch a community-driven approach to death and dying.