Hillingdon

Archived MOOCs

ARCHAEOLOGY
The Architectural Imagination: Architecture engages a culture’s deepest social values and expresses them in material, aesthetic form. This course will teach you how to understand architecture as both cultural expression and technical achievement. Vivid analyses of exemplary buildings, and hands-on exercises in drawing and modelling, will bring you closer to the work of architects and historians. The Architectural Imagination A 10-module self-paced course with 30 hours of material

At the Origins of Mediterranean Civilisation. Archaeology of the City from the Levant to the West: 3rd to 1st millennium BC. Click here for the link Origins of Mediterranean Civilization
Beginners Level: Approx 13 hours to complete

ART
Poetry: How to Read a Poem. Discover what poetry can tell us about human emotion and learn key ideas and techniques for understanding and interpreting verse. Link here ... How to Read a Poem. An introductory self-paced course with 4 hours study each week.

Warhol: An introduction to the life and work of Andy Warhol, one of the world’s most famous artists, through exploration of five thematic framings of his life and career: celebrity, sex, money, death and time. Have a look here Warhol A self-paced course with 10 hours of material.

Fashion Style Icons and the Design Industry. While the term “Fashion Icon” is relatively modern, fashion has always been defined and redefined by bold visionaries throughout history. Images of today's celebrities and fashion mavens are ever-present, but long before the selfie, sculpture and painting captured individuals and their fashion styling. Designers still look to these powerful sources for fashion elements and inspiration, and this course will trace the history of clothing and the way that themes have been interpreted over the last 500 years.
Starting in the 15th century, we will view the fashion biographies of notable individuals and examine garments and ‘looks’ for their trend-setting elements. Fashion is extremely and pointedly cyclical, and garment elements and design ideas that look ‘fresh’ to a certain generation can often be directly or indirectly traced to a prior moment or figure in history. In this course we will look at some of these times and people, and compare and contrast them to fashion that has emerged. Contemporary designs will be reviewed to identify the reuse or redefinition of many of these details. We will progressively develop the eye and skill to sketch and create our own ideas through a creative journaling process, culminating in an original design project based on historical elements. A self-paced course in four sessions. Link here .....Fashion Icons and the Design Industry

Innovation: The Fashion Industry: Innovation is at the heart of the fashion industry. From developing new types of fabric and clothing materials to innovation in marketing and advertising, the industry constantly moves forward to remain competitive and relevant. This is a self paced 2 week course with 2 hours each week, find it here The Fashion Industry.

What’s your take on Andy Warhol? How about a Warhol MOOC? An introduction to the life and work of Andy Warhol, one of the world’s most famous artists, through exploration of five thematic framings of his life and career: celebrity, sex, money, death and time. This is a self-paced course with 10hours of material.Andy Warhol

European Paintings: From Leonardo to Rembrandt to Goya
Uncover the meaning behind the art of the great painters from 1400 to 1800.
Link here ....European Paintings from 1400 to 1800
This introductory course runs for 2-3 hours each week for 7 weeks

ASTRONOMY
Moons: Explore the many moons of our Solar System
There are lots of moons in our Solar System. The Earth is the only planet with just a single moon. Some are bigger than ours. Many are much smaller. Some moons have ongoing volcanic eruptions. Others have rivers of liquid methane. A small handful may even be home to primitive life.
This online course will allow you to explore the rich diversity of moons in our Solar System. With experts from The Open University, you’ll explore the fundamental processes that have shaped them, and the relationship between our Moon and the Earth.
Click here for the link Explore the many Moons
Beginnners Level * weeks at 3 hours each week

CANADA
Explore Indigenous Canada,the country and its history.
This course explores histories and contemporary issues in Canada from an Indigenous perspective. It includes the fur trade and other exchange relationships, land claims and environmental impacts, legal systems and rights, political conflicts and alliances, Indigenous political activism, and contemporary Indigenous life, art and its expressions.
Click here for the link.... Indigenous Canada
This is a 12-lesson introductory course with 36 hours of study material

CLIMATE CHANGE
Really wanting to get to grips with Climate Change? Why not follow The Climate Energy Challenge.
This is an introductory 9 week course requiring study of 4-6 hours each week.

DESIGN
Intro to the Design of Everyday things: Everyone designs. Design occurs anytime you deliberately change an environment to make things better. When you decide what seat to take in an auditorium you’re designing your experience. When you rearrange the furniture in a room or draft an email, you’re designing. This is a 2 week introductory course and is self paced. Click here Intro to the Design of Everyday things.

GARDENING
Everything about Orchids
Whether you are new to orchids or a seasoned grower, Everything About Orchids will offer valuable insights from the experts at Longwood Gardens, one of the great gardens of the world. Everything about Orchids
This is a self-paced course with 10 hours of study.

GEOGRAPHY
Geosciences Take the challenge of predicting the nature and behaviour of the Earth subsurface? Then Geoscience, The Earth and its resources may be your course! In a voyage through the Earth, you will explore the Earth interior and master the processes forming mountains and sedimentary basins. You will understand how the sediments are formed, transported, deposited and deformed. You will acquire basic knowledge on the two mostimportant sources of subsurface energy: hydrocarbons and geothermal! Key knowledge in times of global change and energy transition!
This is an introductory course with 48 hours worth of material.... Geosciences

HEALTH
Maintaining a Mindful Life. Discover techniques to help you maintain a mindful life. Interest in mindfulness has grown enormously over the last few years. It’s no surprise: mindfulness techniques can improve your communication skills, relationships and emotional health. But not everyone knows how to apply mindfulness in daily life. Link here ......Mindfulness Life
A self-paced course with 3 hours material per week for 4 weeks

HISTORY
Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories. Learn how American women created, confronted, and embraced change in the 20th century while exploring ten objects from Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library. Women Making History. A self-paced 8 week course with 2-3 hours material each week.

Buddhism Through Its Scriptures. Learn about the rich and diverse beliefs and practices of Buddhists across time and place. Experience Buddhism through its scriptures, both relationally as well as academically. Link here .....Buddhism. A self-paced 4 week course with 5-10 hours material each week.

Extinctions: Past and Present: This free online course explores how life on earth has been shaped by five mass extinction events in the distant past. At present, biodiversity is facing a crisis, with the prospect of a sixth extinction event today.
Link here .......Extinctions A self-paced course with 3 hours material each week for 5 weeks.

Introduction to Human Evolution. As contemporary humans, we are a product of our evolutionary past. That past can be directly observed through the study of the human fossil record, the materials preserved for archaeological study, and the DNA of living and extinct human populations. This course will provide an overview of human evolutionary history from the present--contemporary human variation in a comparative context--through our last common ancestor with the living great apes, some 5-7 million years in the past. Emphasis will be placed on major evolutionary changes in the development of humans and the methodological approaches used by paleoanthropologists and related investigators to develop that knowledge. This is a self-paced course lasting 4 weeks with 4-6 hours of study material each week. Link here... Human Evolution

China’s First Empires and the Rise of Buddhism This course, the second in a collection on Chinese history and culture, addresses how the Qin dynasty conquered China and established a new system of government and how the Han dynasty built a stable, centralized empire that lasted for hundreds of years. We cover the early history of Buddhism in China and how the rising feudal aristocracy responded to the loss of empire by looking inward. This is a self-paced 15 week course with 1-3 hours material each week. Click here China’s First Empires and Buddhism

Was Alexander Great? Alexander the Great conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks, fused the eastern and western peoples of his empire, and became a god – before his 33rd birthday. This course explores the life, leadership, and legacies of history’s warrior, and one of its most controversial leaders, an ambiguous genius whose story helps us to understand not only the history of warfare, but also different ideas about human sexuality, the history of relations between east and west, and the religious beliefs both of ancient polytheists and modern monotheists. This is a self paced 4 week course with 4-6 hours of material each week. Click here Alexander the Great

Arabic Islamic History: From Tribes to Empires
This course is in two parts. The first presents the main political events that set the chronological framework for the course, namely 6th century to the arrival of the Ottomans in the Middle East in the beginning of the 16th century. The second part delves into social and cultural realities of the medieval Middle East. This is a self-paced course with 24 hours of material, find it here: Arabic Islamic History

Pyramids of Giza: Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology
Where is Giza? How were the Pyramids built? How did the cemeteries and hundreds of decorated tombs around them develop? What was Giza’s contribution to this first great age of ancient Egyptian civilization, the Old Kingdom? Here is a self-paced introductory course with 18 hours of material, click here to participate. Pyramids of Giza

American Civil War? The Civil War and Reconstruction - 1850-1861: A House Divided Discover how the issue of slavery came to dominate American politics, and how political leaders struggled and failed to resolve the growing crisis in the nation. A House Divided: The Road to Civil War, 1850-1861 begins by examining how generations of historians have explained the crisis of the Union. After discussing the institution of slavery and its central role in the southern and national economies, it turns to an account of the political and social history of the 1850s.
This is a self-paced course with 6-8 hours per week materials. American Civil War

The Spain of Don Quixote. This course focuses on Spanish history between the Renaissance and Baroque periods—a time when the Spanish culture set the tone in the Western world. The monarchy of this Spain created the first global empire of History. The greatest literary works of this period, including La Celestina, Lazarillo de Tormes, were immediately translated in the first European and American printing houses.
Click here .......The Spain of Don Quixote
This is an introductory course with 28 hours of study material.

LOGICAL and CRITICAL THINKING
The Mind is Flat: The Shocking Shallowness of Human Psychology. Discover how to make better personal and professional decisions, and how the brain could be more flexible than we think. Link here ... The Mind is Flat. 5 hours study each week for 6 weeks.

Fat Chance: Probability from the Ground Up. Increase your quantitative reasoning skills through a deeper understanding of probability and statistics. Understand Probabilty. A self-paced 7 week course with 3-5 hours material each week.

Philosophy and Critical Thinking: What can we learn through philosophical inquiry that will help us to think with clarity rigour and humour about things that matter? This course introduces principles of philosophical inquiry and critical thinking that will help us answer this question. Learn how we can use philosophical ideas to think about ourselves and the world around us. Philosophy and Critical Thinking A six-week self paced course with 1-4 hours material each week.

Want to improve your thinking skills? How about Logical and Critical Thinking?
This is an 8 week course with 4 hours of study each week.

LITERATURE
Jane Austen: Myth, Reality and Global Celebrity. Discover the fascinating story of author Jane Austen, from her own life in Hampshire to what she means to a global audience today. Link here ... Jane Austen. 3 hours study each week for 3 weeks.

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry: A fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, with an emphasis on experimental verse, from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." We encounter and discuss the poems one at a time. It's much easier than it seems! Join us and try it! Link here .......USA Poetry

A self-paced course with 5-10 hours material each week for 10 weeks.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet: The Ghost. In the first act of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Ghost of the dead King of Denmark appears to his son, setting off a chain of events that culminates in the play’s notoriously bloody finale. But how would this mysterious figure have been understood in Shakespeare’s time? Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt guides learners through an exploration of the Ghost’s uncanny theatrical power and the historical contexts from which the character emerged. You will be introduced to the narrative sources of Hamlet, the religious convictions that shaped how Renaissance England understood the afterlife, and how the Ghost would have thrilled and challenged its original audience. By focusing on the Ghost, you will see how the play grapples with issues like death, mourning, remembrance, and the power of theatre. A self-paced 4 week course with 5-7 hours of learning material each week. Link here ... Shakespeare’s Hamlet: The Ghost

Modern Masterpieces of World Literature
Link here.... Modern Masterpieces of World Literature
This introductory course runs for 3-6 hours each week for 8 weeks

MUSIC
First Nights - Beethoven's 9th Symphony and the 19th Century Orchestra. Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony premiered in Vienna in 1824, and continues to be one of the most popular symphonies in the repertoire. The monumental symphony’s size and complexity stretches traditional instrumental forms to the breaking point, and its famous choral finale changed our view of orchestral music forever. Harvard’s Thomas Forrest Kelly (Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music) guides learners through all four movements of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, highlighting aspects of symphonic form, describing Beethoven’s composition process, the rehearsals and premiere performance, and the work’s continued relevance today. You will learn the basics of musical form and analysis, the genres and styles used and the circumstances of this symphony’s first performance and subsequent history. Learners in this course need not have any prior musical experience. A 3 week self-paced course with 3-5 hours material for each week. Link here ..... Learn Musical From via Beethoven 9th

18th Century Opera: Handel and Mozart
In this breathtaking course, you'll get to know the music of two beautiful operas — both in their spellbindingartistry and colorful histories.First, you'll travel to London in 1724, where George Frideric Handel premiered his most famous opera, Giulio Cesare. Meet the performers and experience what it was like to attend the first production, all while gaining an appreciation for the typical characteristics of Italian opera represented in this popular Baroque opera seria.Then fast-forward 63 years to the Estates Theatre in Prague for the premiere of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s enduring classic, Don Giovanni. Learn about the challenges Mozart faced during the rehearsal process and the revolutionary relationship he created between music and drama in this opera.
This is a self-paced introductory course with 15 hours of material, access here: 18th Century Opera

PHILOSOPHY
The Path to Happiness: What Chinese Philosophy Teaches us about the Good Life. Why should we care about Confucius? Explore ancient Chinese philosophy, ethics, and political theory to challenge your assumptions of what it means to be happy, live a meaningful life, and change the world. Link here... Chinese Philosophy. An introductory self-paced course with 1-2 hours material per week for 13 weeks

SCIENCE & COMPUTING
Food Science and Nutrition: From the Farm to You. Follow food’s fascinating journey from the farm to your body and explore new food technologies and nutrition around the world. Link here ...From the Farm to You. 2 hours study each week for 2 weeks.

Power Searching with Google. Power Searching With Google makes it amazingly easy to find information. Learn about the powerful advanced tools that are on the Internet to help you become an advanced power searcher. .......Power Search Google. A 3 week self-paced course with 4-6 hours material each week.

World of Wine: From Grape to Glass. Learn about the principles and practices of how grapes are grown and wine is made. Whether you’re a wine novice or a seasoned oenophile, you’ll learn to confidently describe wine appearance, aroma, flavour and taste. link here ..... World of Wine: From Grape to Glass. A self-paced 6 week course with 2-3 hours of material each week.

Human Neuroanatomy: On this course, you’ll be introduced to the central and peripheral nervous systems. Through a series of illustrated lecture videos and quizzes, you’ll explore basic neuroanatomy, as well as sensory pathways, motor pathways and the autonomic nervous system. By the end of this course, you’ll have a more thorough understanding of how the entire body influences, and is influenced, by the nervous system. Human Neuroanatomy An 8-week self-paced course with 3 hours material each week.

The Science of Beer: Are you interested in more than just the taste of beer? Discover what's in your beer, how it's made and marketed and the effect it has on your body and health. Science of Beer A six-week self paced course with 2-4 hours material each week.

The Musculoskeletal System: The Science of Staying Active into Old Age. This free online course has been developed by The Medical Research Council Versus Arthritis Centre for Integrated Research into Musculoskeletal Ageing, a collaboration between the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle. On this course, you’ll learn why our bones, joints and muscles function less well as we age, and discover how best to live well as we get older. Link here........Musculoskeletal Ageing
A self-paced course with 3 hours material for 3 weeks

Introduction to Psychology: The History and Science of Psychology: On this course, you’ll explore the origins of psychology. Starting with the breakaway from philosophy, you’ll investigate the early schools of thought, look into some of the key individuals who shaped the field, and then discover how it emerged as the discipline we know it today. This is a self paced 2 week course with 6 hours of material each week. Find it here Introduction to Psychology.

The Conquest of Space: Space Exploration and Rocket Science
Space exploration plays a major role in the history of humankind. The cultural, political and sociological repercussions are extraordinary, and the amount of resources dedicated to space exploration is enormous. This aerospace course is a first step for those interested in learning more about the history of the space and the impact of space exploration on our daily lives.
This is a self-paced course with 21 hours of material, here it is: The Conquest of Space

A new Forensic Facial Reconstruction course from the University of Sheffield will enable you to learn about the forensic technique of facial reconstruction from the experts involved in a real crime case. The course is entitled Forensic Facial Reconstruction: Finding Mr. X. This course has 2 hours material for each of 2 weeks. Forensic Facial Reconstruction

WEATHER
Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons and what is a 'front'?
Explore all things weather using the link here ....... Learn About Weather
This is a course is a 4 week course with 3 hours study each week.