Online College Course Based On "The Walking Dead"

AMC, Instructure, and the University of California, Irvine, have announced the joint production of a massive open online course (MOOC) exploring a broad range of scholarly topics through the lens of a hypothetical zombie apocalypse.

The free, eight-week MOOC, titled "Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC's 'The Walking Dead'," will be offered on Instructure's MOOC platform, Canvas Network, and will be taught by a multidisciplinary team of UC Irvine faculty: Zuzana Bic, public health; Joanne Christopherson, social sciences; Michael Dennin, physics; and Sarah Eichhorn, mathematics. They were handpicked based on experience in teaching MOOCs, history of using pop culture in the classroom, and strong curricular alignment with case studies from the TV series.

"Fans of the show know that 'The Walking Dead' is about more than zombies; it's about survival, leadership, and adapting to situations that are perilous and uncertain," said Theresa Beyer, vice president of promotions and activation at AMC. "AMC is excited to be the first entertainment group to make the foray into the online education arena through this unique partnership with the University of California, Irvine, and Instructure. There is clearly a growing appetite for engagement with 'The Walking Dead,' and we hope this online course will drive a deep, sustained connection with the show during its upcoming fourth season and offer a legitimate educational experience that can be applied even more broadly."

Enrollment in the course is currently available to anyone in the world. The first class is scheduled for Monday, October 14, the day after the Season 4 premiere of AMC's "The Walking Dead."

The course will run for eight consecutive Mondays through December 2. Because the series will air at different times around the world, Canvas Network will put in place provisions to help international participants avoid spoilers.While using pop culture references in the classroom is nothing new, this MOOC represents a unique level of experimentation in teaching and learning by formally infusing an academic syllabus with contemporary media. It's also the first time a technology firm, entertainment company, and major university have collaborated in this way.

UC Irvine, which is ranked first among U.S. universities under 50 years old by the London-based Times Higher Education, has been a leader in the MOOC movement and a pioneer in open education for more than a decade. This partnership reflects UC Irvine's next step in utilizing popular culture and flexible technology to improve outcomes in the open, online learning environment.

"As an educator, I'm always looking for ways to make scholarly ideas come alive for my students," said Bic, who regularly employs pop culture analogies in her teaching on public health issues. "'The Walking Dead' provides many poignant case studies related to the scholarly areas covered in the course, and it helps that it's one of TV's most popular shows. There will be something for everyone in this course, which will explore concepts as varied as post-disaster nutrition, the foundations of human survival, and stereotypes in a Darwinian environment."

"The Walking Dead" is the most-watched TV series in basic cable history and was the No. 1 show last season among adults 18 to 49 across all broadcast and cable networks. In addition to including content from the TV series, the online course will allow professors to digitally insert guest lecturers to add depth and variety to the curriculum.

A recent study by Instructure and the enterprise survey company Qualtrics revealed that students are most likely to complete MOOCs if they have a uniquely engaging academic experience.

"The education industry continues to experiment with MOOCs and is yielding insights into how to economically educate on a global scale," said Instructure CEO Josh Coates. "'The Walking Dead' MOOC by UC Irvine will explore new ways to teach serious multidisciplinary academic curriculum in a popular social context that is engaging."

Zombie Experts Visit College

The Casper Journal brings us word of such experts providing information in the university setting:

Inspired by the television show, zombies will visit Casper College on Monday nights, beginning Jan. 28. The Continuing Education department is offering a class called “Zombies” which looks at how society might address potentially devastating events, like a zombie infestation.

The class will be led by Lance and Pam Jones, who’re big fans of “The Walking Dead.”

“We were sitting around after watching the show one night and just got to talking, wondering, if it really happened, what would be done?” Pam said.

“We thought, wouldn’t it be cool to do a class about this? And it so happens we both work for the college so we approached the Continuing Ed and asked if they’d be interested,” Lance said.

There will be a lot of humor to the class, but there’s some serious information to be had. “We want to be serious about it, but using the zombies as the cover story, we really want to talk about crisis management. We’ve got some heavy hitters coming in to talk about this, we’re just kind of the facilitators,” Pam said.

Speakers from the Natrona County Emergency Management Agency will talk about coordinating a response to a crisis, which pertains to zombies too. “They’ll talk about mitigating the situation, coordinating the response and then the resources for dealing with refugees,” Lance said.

The Casper-Natrona County Public Health Department will talk about disease outbreaks and how they’re spread. “A zombie outbreak is essentially a contagious person-to-person contracted disease,” Lance said.

The Wyoming National Guard will provide an expert on the military response to an outbreak as well as the impact of standard weapons and how to use them effectively. “Zombies operate on the remnants of the central nervous system, so the classic doctrine is that you have to shoot them in the head to stop them and who better to talk about what may or may not work than the National Guard?” Lance said.

The Natrona County Coroner’s Office will present on the real world issues surrounding what happens to dead or dying bodies. The question is, if this were real, how long would the zombies be running — or shuffling — around until they fell apart?

Finally, a Wyoming Medical Center trauma nurse will talk about things related to disabling the bad guys or the effect of trauma on the living.

Politics Of The Undead

A friend at work brought this to my attention.

If you're a student of Marshall University and enjoy all things undead and politics, then check out this course in the fall. Check out the following image for more details: