AMC, the US cable network behind hit TV show ‘The Walking Dead’ are giving people a chance to learn how to survive a zombie apocalypse via an online course.
Zombies, undead and walkers are just some of the names that we call them. Some merely shuffle along, but some are a little faster and a little smarter and know how to capture their prey. Their prey, if the depictions in pop culture are to be believed, is humankind and the zombies in particular are out to get our brains. That’s the type of thing that we hope we’d all be able to defend against should zombies become a real threat, but apart from the many video games some of us will have played and the media we may have watched, it’s hard to know exactly which skills we’d need to fight back against the undead masses. But now, AMC, the cable television channel behind popular zombie television show, ‘The Walking Dead’, have put together an online course to train up the population in case of a zombie attack.
Called ‘Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’, the collection of useful tips is a ‘MOOC’, a ‘Massive Open Online Course’, allowing for more people to take part than your average class. Working with Instructure, an ‘education technology company’ and the University of California at Irvine, AMC’s The Walking Dead tie-in project is across eight weeks, giving users plenty of time to learn about zombies as well as topics such as ‘Maslow’s hierarchy, public health and pandemics and the science of hope’.
But just how will it teach users the information to defend against undead hordes? Content and video clips from the show will be used as examples and, to the delight of The Walking Dead fans, the course may also feature participation from some of the show’s actors themselves. Hopefully, the tips suggested won’t just be dedicated to the show’s over 10 million viewers (The Walking Dead’s season 3 finale garnered 12.4 million viewers) and that they will be of some use, with Theresa Beyer, AMC’s vice president of promotions and activation, saying that “[They] hope this online course will drive a deep, sustained connection with the show… and provide a legitimate educational experience.” suggesting that the multiple types of the course’s users will find something of use here.
The course is open from October 14th, 2013 to December 20th, 2013 and enrolment is free. We’ll keep you posted once we know more.
Source: gigaom, ‘Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’
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