 Let's get started! Ich bin ein Writer und ein Storyteller selbst. Das ist warum ich mich sehr glücklich bin, dass ich dieses Kurs kreieren kann. Und sogar mehr so über alle von uns, unsere Studenten, die meine Passion für Storytelling und die Verbindung auf so einen breiten Level stecken. Was man hier erfüllen kann, ist das erste ever Kurs dieser Stelle, in der meine Schule, der Universität des Appliates Sciences hier in Potsdam, hat ever created. Unsere ganze Universität hat ca. 3.000 enrolled Studenten. By now you guys are far more than 40.000, so that's more than 10, 15 times the students of my whole school, where usual courses have like 10 to 30 students each enrolled. Meaning, this really is a little adventure for all of us, you as well as me and my team. But I'm sure it's going to be an exciting one. Storytelling in general is a vast field, maybe as vast as the variety of students taking part in this MOOC. You not only come from all kinds of different countries and even continents, giving you completely different cultural backgrounds of what storytelling means, aims at and how it is valued in your country. You also come from many different fields of studies, jobs and levels of experience. Some of you that also have written to me, thankfully, before, some of you just love stories, are hobby storytellers, writers after or before your day job or university course. Or you might already be a storytelling professional, game designer from New York, for example, or a book editor from Mumbai, looking for new inspiration, for new input and new people to share your passion and your network with. In this course, you are equally welcome. In this MOOC, these differences equally matter and they matter not. This course is aimed at beginners who have not yet studied five years of film or literature, creative writing or dramaturgy, which means there will be basic introductions into how to create a character, settings and plots. Our aim, however, is to offer inspiration and hopefully help you inspire each other by asking and answering questions throughout the community, by, for example, working together on projects and learning from each other by offering advice and commenting on each other's work. Right now, I'm gonna tell you how this will work. Starting with this video, there are eight weeks of video lectures and creative tasks ahead of you. Each Friday, we launch a new chapter with several video units and quizzes that you can watch and solve and hopefully enjoy whenever you want until the 20th of December this year, short before Christmas. The creative tasks are directly linked to the chapters. If you don't feel ready to share anything, that's totally fine, I can understand that. Still, I very much invite you to use this great opportunity to share and link to your results on our discussion boards under the Creative Task Unit. We will show you how this works later. Use this worldwide readership and audience in our community and give and gain helpful comments on your ideas and work. Also, please note, this course is not about grades. You will not be graded and judged by me and my team. All creative tasks are offered to help you and keep in mind, there is no absolute right and wrong in a subject like ours. There will never be that one correct solution to any given creative task. Okay, enough said. Now, let's start. Please click the arrow on the right to head to our first real course unit and welcome, really will come again.