Using MOOCs for professional development

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Dr Denise Taylor

8 December 2017

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MOOC stands for Massive, Open, Online Courses (Moocs)

 

Massive because millions sign up for these, world-wide

Open because most are free, and you don’t have to have specific qualifications to sign up (although sometimes a particular background is recommended).

Online and available on the web via your phone as well as on your computer

Course as they are taught over a period of time, often 2-8 weeks, and needing 2-6 hours a week of your involvement.

The number of Universities and training providers offer MOOCs is growing, and many MOOCs are free, although you can pay for a certificate of completion.  These organisations create MOOCs for several reasons including

  • Marketing and reputation building
  • Research dissemination
  • Supplementary resources for existing students
  • Social mission

Moocs can be found via

MOOC List – this is the list of all free courses.

Coursera – Take the world’s best courses, online for free. Links from here to 665 courses

edX – masses of course across a range of subjects from Architecture to social Science, the courses are at introductory, intermediate and advanced level and alongside English available in Spanish, Chinese and more.

FutureLearn – Many short courses from universities with a wide subject base

Open Learn – over 1000 free courses including popular ones linked to the Blue Planet TV show and another on Digital Forensics. They say “anyone can learn for free on OpenLearn but creating an account lets you set up a personal learning profile which tracks your course progress and gives you access to Statements of Participation and digital badges you earn along the way.”

You can also gain much knowledge via Ted Talks.

e.g. I’ve done a search on TED talks for Leadership – there are 773 so you can skim and see which appeal

https://www.ted.com/search?q=leadership

This one could be helpful re return to work: https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_fishman_cohen_how_to_get_back_to_work_after_a_career_break

Grovo

http://www.grovo.com/ – I’ve recently found out about Grova, as a good way of learning professional skills via video. It’s looking good and you complete an online short questionnaire and it suggests courses to complete

You may also want to pay for some online training which is much more cost effective than a residential training course. For example, if you want to update your IT skills you could go this site.

I’d love to know if you have taken any MOOCs and how you got on. But don'[t forget TED talks too.

More here

Top 100 Free Online Courses from the Best Universities

Feel free to make a comment below

 

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