Massive open online courses (MOOCs)

Sol Logos

Sol Logos

The Living Force
I dont know how familiar everyone is with MOOCs, but I came across this just yesterday and would like to share. Basically there's hundreds of short courses offered by universities and colleges internationally that are free. I've signed up for a few already.

If of interest have a look at this site:
https://www.coursera.org/

This too has a larger range of all such courses collated in the one site:
http://www.mooc-list.com/

Being "accredited" institutions, how wide of the conventional the material will be is limited but, nonetheless, a great and free resource.
 
Thank you for sharing alkemst. I too wanted to sign up to an online course, which I have done through this website. I am doing the Water Treatment course in connection to my day job.

May I ask what you courses you have signed up for? (as I may sign up to another)
 
ashu said:
Thank you for sharing alkemst. I too wanted to sign up to an online course, which I have done through this website. I am doing the Water Treatment course in connection to my day job.

May I ask what you courses you have signed up for? (as I may sign up to another)
Click to expand...

Glad it was useful. I signed up for 2 work related ones as well - Design thinking, and Inspiring leadership through emotional intelligence, then I also signed up for Songwriting
 
Oh great, more online courses! First time I heard about it was when one of the fellow students shared it on the inner social network. It's probably a similar project just with different universities, in this case MIT, Havard, etc. Here it is:
_https://www.edx.org/
I even subscribed to one, foolishly thinking that maybe I could combine it with my main studies. Yeah, right. :) But they do have interesting topics and always add more. Here is the list:
_https://www.edx.org/course-list/allschools/allsubjects/allcourses
They even have The Ancient Greek Hero course, or Quantum mechanics, etc. The only catch that I was able to find so far, that their plan is to maybe charge in the future for the more progressive courses. But if your goal is to simply learn without getting a degree, than you can enjoy it as long as it lasts.
 
As an aspiring academic, I have to confess to feeling somewhat ambivalent about MOOCs. From the point of view of university administrators and the corporate culture that produces them, MOOCs are all about keeping costs low, and have bumbkis to do with improving learning. After all, if you can just have a series of pre-recorded lessons ... and eventually, automated marking technology ... what do you need actual academics for? And of course, academics are expensive, quarrelsome, and can be politically annoying. Much easier to just do away with as many of them as possible, while the few remaining are kept tractable through competition over increasingly scarce positions.

Meanwhile, there is little evidence that MOOCs actually provide a decent learning experience. Many students I've talked to have had a difficult time staying motivated; engagement is not particularly great; there is little (usually no) opportunity to actually interact with other students pursuing the same material. I'm not saying don't use them ... they can be good supplementary material. Just expressing my concern as to where this is ultimately heading.

And yes, as Keit said ... the plan ultimately is to charge: learn for free all you want, but pay for the accreditation.
 
Thanks for the links, when I actually get some spare time I will browse the links and see what is offered. :cool2:
 
M.O.O.C. (Massive Open Online Courses)

Hello all!

I just thought about sharing this courses with you.

Maybe some of you already know them. They are free online courses in many different subjects provided by various universities around the world.

Here's an explanatory video about what are the MOOCs and what are their purposes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc (it reminds me a bit of this forums in some of the ideas)

The courses are pretty mainstream in terms of the focus they have but they're very interesting as a way of expanding the knowledge about some topics and accessing to material for further research and deepening. They can be a good trigger for topics here in the forum. ;)

The video lectures are generally available for download and you don't really have a requirement to do any of the other activities such as engaging in the discussion forums and that. For example, as I don't have plenty of free time, I enroll into the courses and download the videos to watch them in my own pace of time.

You can find the courses in different platforms throughout the internet. One of the best for this purpose is Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/courses

To give an idea of some courses, some of the most interesting ones that I found are:

A Brief History of Humankind
https://class.coursera.org/humankind-001/class

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue
https://class.coursera.org/thinkagain-002/class

Medical Neuroscience
https://www.coursera.org/course/medicalneuro

Modern European Mysticism and Psychological Thought
https://www.coursera.org/course/mysticthought

Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression
https://www.coursera.org/course/epigenetics
 
Re: M.O.O.C. (Massive Open Online Courses)

Thanks Acid. I am definitely going to check these out.
 
Re: M.O.O.C. (Massive Open Online Courses)

There are some very interesting classes on the coursera site. Mainstream... yes... But there are intros into interesting subjects like social psychology, information theory, etc. Also, there are some somewhat off-beat courses such as a course about studies in irrational behavior. I am taking a couple myself to get the basic vocabulary in a couple of subjects I know nothing about. The courses are solid, very professionally put together with video lectures, tests, homework, and each class has a forum where you can discuss the course with other students with occasional input from the professor and teacher's assistants.

Note! Coursera are not classes at your own pace! If you want that, there are other MOOC sites like that. I think udacity is one of them.
 
Re: M.O.O.C. (Massive Open Online Courses)

So many topics, some of them very interesting! Thanks Acid Yazz, definitely something to look into for me.
 
Re: M.O.O.C. (Massive Open Online Courses)

Patience said:
There are some very interesting classes on the coursera site. Mainstream... yes... But there are intros into interesting subjects like social psychology, information theory, etc. Also, there are some somewhat off-beat courses such as a course about studies in irrational behavior. I am taking a couple myself to get the basic vocabulary in a couple of subjects I know nothing about. The courses are solid, very professionally put together with video lectures, tests, homework, and each class has a forum where you can discuss the course with other students with occasional input from the professor and teacher's assistants.

Yes! they're very well organized and professional
Click to expand...

Patience said:
Note! Coursera are not classes at your own pace! If you want that, there are other MOOC sites like that. I think udacity is one of them.
Click to expand...

That's true. If you want to do the course as they should be, they have their own times, deadlines, etc. But you can watch the video lectures at your own pace if you download them, that's what I meant. ;)
 
Re: M.O.O.C. (Massive Open Online Courses)

I signed up for a couple a number of months ago, didn't actually get a chance to do them. There's a huge drop off rate but irrespective its great to have access to these whether or not one chooses to do them or not. In a lot of ways it works as a taste testing marketing style thing for institutions, especially for those that are going down the online education as a huge source of student enrolments (and funding). Not necessarily a bad thing in terms of being accessible to more people.

Anyway, there's a few comments here from a precious thread (in case worth merging)
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,32100.msg433790.html#msg433790
 
I found out about these online open courses here on the forum. I've signed up for a few MOOCs and thought they were pretty neat. I am currently taking Intro to Guitar with Coursera, because I never had the chance to take it while I was in school. I am also taking College Algebra with Udacity's self paced courses. I have a lot of difficulty with math and that course has really been helping me. I also think MOOCs are good for fun and personal development, but not so much for getting credit or a degree. Thanks to everyone for sharing.
 
Thanks to all for these resources. While I agree that you're not going to get the same type of education from these courses as you would if you learned the course from a "Great Teacher", a lot of times taking the course in a school/university setting leaves you with the same result because not all teachers are good at what they do. At the very least an online course can provide a foundation as a spring-board. It gives a person enough exposure so that if you do stumble across what I call a "Great Teacher", you can recognize who they are faster because you had some level of background knowledge and it helps you identify people who can teach you more about the subject than you got from the online course.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Trending content

Back
Top Bottom