Annabelle, 16

Once I made internet friends, making friends in real life became much easier,

It’s how I met my closest friends when I felt isolated from people who shared my interests.

The “dark” side of Rhizo14 related to many of the gaps in MOOC research that have been noted by other researchers and referenced in the review of literature. Rhizo14 participants for whom the experience was less than positive felt isolated. They felt unable to make meaningful connections despite in some cases being experienced “MOOCers.” One viewed the emphasis on community as an unnecessary pressure, which led to artificial effects, exclusion and limited learning. Another viewed the community as “ disjointed networks of pre-established subgroups. ” Another described the community as having a “ dark edge .” These participants felt that there was a lack of appropriate facilitation, and that there were inappropriate exhibitions of power and politics in the course. Some felt that the course was based on weak philosophical foundations and that the rhizome is an empty signifier. Some questioned the lack of content in the course and felt that it lacked depth and theoretical discussion. For these participants the rhizome is “ A pernicious, pervasive weed, rooted in a lot of dirt and “SH***””; “ . . .a ‘thug’ and can be very badly behaved”; “Part of one big family/ plant—joined at the hip”; “Clones of the “same damn plan t.” One respondent wrote “I knew before that the arborescent paradigm was a problem. The rhizome is a contrasting alternative, but I learned in the course that this alternative has a lot of connotations with ugly and weed-like characteristics which are not necessary for every complex or even chaotic network” (survey respondent)