MOOC, Free Education for Everyone!!

“MOOC” (onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca)

“You need to participate in MOOC to pass the assessment” said my marketing lecturer in the first class. After listening to the explanation , I still had not much idea what MOOC was about. So, I came back and quickly searched, then I know that MOOC stands for ‘Massive Open Online Course’. That’s right; it is some form of what we call ‘distance education’. I think everyone can join for free in most of MOOC platform like the one I’m using which is ‘Future Learn’ . In this blog post, I would like to share my first experience after taking this online course for two weeks.

For one concept I like about MOOC is, it is free for everyone. All you need is the Internet and, of course, self-discipline, since many courses usually take more than a week (some are up to 10 weeks!). Each course is organised by educators from a large number of well-known universities. Apart from this, there are various categories to support learners’ different interests. In each course there is an introduction to provide you general ideas of what the purpose of this course is. Moreover, you can sign up for the upcoming course and when the time comes it will notify you by email. From the course I’m taking at the moment, it is well-structured; all sections are separated for learners to read easily. In addition, we can tick the section we’ve already finished as to help us when we want to continue reading later.

Sample Course Categories (Futurelearn.com)

Nonetheless, there are a few things the course should be improved. In the comment part, when I post a comment and if there is a discussion emerges later under my post, it won’t appear as a new feed. Imagine Facebook, whichever post has an update, it would go up to the top so that everyone else can see it, and that can lead them to join the discussion. However, I think this is due to ‘Future Learn’ platform’s design. In addition, what I feel now is there is not enough discussion or debate because everyone just posts a new comment without reading others. Therefore, a good solution here is for learners to help post a comment that is able to bring to an interesting debate. This would help the course looks more lively.

To sum up, despite a minor technical problem, MOOC is a good concept for self-learning. It is suitable for everyone and covers most of the subject areas. With the internet and real attention, education is open for everyone. In short, I think MOOC is a good outcome of social media development provided for any enthusiastic learners.

Wanna jump in MOOC now? Here is a list of MOOC platforms you might be interested in.