Wessington

More Learning ......

Where there’s MOOC...there’s learning

MOOCs are Massive Open Online Courses, an important development in the field of online learning. There’s nothing new about universities putting materials online for the general public; the Open University, Yale and MIT have been doing this for some time. What makes MOOCs different is that they are fully interactive, with tutor involvement. To get an idea of what is available have a look at the following sites:

u3a MOOCs Advice

https://www.futurelearn.com/
This is a UK site wholly owned by the Open University, with a range of courses in many subjects led by several UK and non-UK universities. To go straight to new and upcoming courses use:
www.futurelearn.com/courses/upcoming

https://www.coursera.org/
This is an American site, very similar to Futurelearn but with contributions from American universities.

The MOOCs on the FutureLearn site used to be completely free. They are still free to the extent that you can work through them for nothing for a specified period. However, you will now have to pay a fee if you want to do any of the following:

  • have continued access after the course has finished
  • gain a certificate of participation
  • complete any of the short tests that are usually part of a course.

If you want any further information about MOOCs please get in touch.

Jean Barnett

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