What are mooCs?
A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and teaching assistants. MOOCs are a recent development in distance education.
Although there has been access to free online courses on the Internet for years, the quality and quantity of courses has changed. Access to free courses has allowed students to obtain a level of education that many only could dream of in the past. This has changed the face of education. In The New York Times article ‘Instruction for Masses Knocked Down Campus Walls’, author Tamar Lewin stated, “…in the past few months hundreds of thousands of motivated students around the world who lack access to elite universities have been embracing them as a path toward sophisticated skills and high-paying jobs, without paying tuition or collecting a college degree.”
TOP-5 MOOCs
The Open University
The
Open University provides high-quality university education to all
those who wish to realize their ambitions and fulfill their
potential. About 12,500 people currently enroll for on-line OU
courses each year.
Nearly all the undergraduate courses of the Open University have no formal entry requirements. This allows people who have missed out on education to fulfill their potential and achieve a university-level qualification.
Check out http://www.open.ac.uk/
Iversity
“As
we move further into the digital age, it is becoming clear that the
walled-in software solutions universities use today are glaringly
outdated”. This is the motivation behind Iversity. They wish to
move beyond the existing teaching formats to enable wholly new forms
of online teaching and learning. In order to develop open course,
they call upon individual instructors, universities and
knowledge-based companies to join them in their effort to
democratize education.
Check out more at https://iversity.org/
Coursera
Coursera
believe in connecting people to a great education so that anyone
around the world can learn without limits. Coursera is an education
company that partners with the top universities and organizations in
the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
Their technology enables their partners to teach millions of
students rather than hundreds. They envision
a future where everyone has access to a world-class education that
has so far been available to a
select few.
Check out Coursera at https://www.coursera.org/
Udacity
Udacity’s
mission is to bring accessible,
affordable, engaging, and highly effective higher education
to the world. They believe that higher education is a basic human
right, and seek to empower their students to advance their education
and careers.
“Higher education is broken with increasingly higher costs for both students and our society at large. Education is no longer a one-time event but a lifelong experience. Education should be less passive listening (no long lectures) and more active doing. Education should empower students to succeed not just in school but in life.”
Udacity are reinventing education for the 21st century by bridging the gap between real-world skills, relevant education, and employment.
Learn more at https://www.udacity.com/
edX
EdX
believe in the highest quality education, both online and in the
classroom. EdX was created for students and institutions that seek
to transform themselves through cutting-edge
technologies, innovative pedagogy, and rigorous courses.
Their goals, however, go beyond offering courses and content. They are committed to research that will allow them to understand how students learn, how technology can transform learning, and the ways teachers teach on campus and beyond.
Main goals:
Expand access to education for everyone;
Enhance teaching and learning on campus and online;
Advance teaching and learning through research.
Learn more at https://www.edx.org/
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Answer the questions:
What are the MOOCs?
What does the Open University offer for the students? Are there any formal entry requirements to enroll for OU courses?
What is the motto of Iversity?
What is the vision of education of Coursera? How many students can be taught at this course simultaneously?
What is the mission of Udacity?
What are the main goals of edX?
In your opinion, what difficulties can one experience taking MOOCs?
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Choose any MOOC from the TOP 5, check its web-site, choose the course that you are interested in, enroll into it, get the on-line certificate for free.
As an option you may choose the following:
How become professional in writing English Composition: https://www.coursera.org/course/composition
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Read the information on the System of Education in the UK.