MOOCs

Hello, guys!

Today we continue to observe numerous opportunities of the Internet and technologies for education and language learning in particular. It seems that the Intenet will never stop surprising me! In this post I`d like to get you acquainted with MOOC which is a massive open online course. First of all, let`s refer to the dictionary to find out the definition of this new term. A massive open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. MOOCs are a recent and widely researched development in distance education which were first introduced in 2006 and emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012. Such a course has the following characteristics: it is open, participatory, distributed and provides life-long network learning. As it called a course it provides a systematic learning process (it has the beginning and the end) but not a rambling studing.

In addtion to this, I have learned about five free MOOC platforms for educators and also compared their pros and cons. As always I decided to explore something new for me in practice so I looked through catalogs of several free MOOC platforms in order to choose a course or courses which I`d like to take. Honestly, it wasn`t a piece of cake as there are so many different interesting courses, I just wanted to take everything. Nevertheless, I`ve made my choice to a pair of courses. But as I always deal with language learning and search only for resourses connected with it, today I`ve decided to choose something from another field of science which is also very interesting for me. That is psychology. The first course that I`ve chosen is from Canvas.net (one of the MOOC platform).

 It is called "Conflict management for college students" (https://www.canvas.net/browse/csuonline/courses/conflict-management) offered by Colorado State University. Although we have very amicable relations in my group, this course will be useful as it provides the knowledge not only how to solve conflicts but also how to prevent them. Besides, it will be informative for me as for potential future teacher.

The other course that I`ve chosen is located in edx.org (also one of the MOOC platform).

 It is called "Introduction to developmental psychology" (https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-developmental-psychology-0) from the University of Queensland, Australia. It is a very attractive course for me as it suggests plunging in the world of human abilities in their development. I really look forward enrolling in it. 

To sum up, you see that today we don`t always need to move to another country and pay huge sums of money to study what you want. At least you can do your self-study through the MOOCs platforms that provide a lot of interesting and, what is important, free contant for anyone eager to learn something new.

Success attend you!