Friday, March 21, 2014

MOOC Massive Open Online Courses

Hello and Happy Spring!

Spring is a great time to air out and freshen up one's mind by learning a new skill or dusting off old skills with a refresher session on a topic you once knew well. I have been spending time these past few weeks taking online courses via Udemy.com icon. These courses offer lifetime access, so you can tap into learning anytime. I learned about 21st century leadership, social media and marketing,  SEO optimization, and Google Analytics. I may brush up on web design with CSS3 and HTML5 since they were not around when I took web design in library school.

Courses from Udemy vary in price. Many are free and others have a fee. Sometimes Udemy offers a discount for a few days. After I completed my first course, I received a coupon to purchase my next course at 50% off. When your instructors create a new course, as a former student, you are offered a steep discount to register.  Courses I have taken varied in length from one hour to fifteen hours.  Courses are available to you 24 hours a day. You simply read the handouts and watch videos when you have time.

I am also scheduled to begin a couple of Coursera courses in May.  Coursera courses are always free. CEU credits are available for a fee.  Coursera courses have a weekly schedule with assignments, but you can sign up for a course and be no more involved than simply perusing the videos and handouts for that course.
ed2go is another online source I will be working with later this year.

MOOCs - the title of my post -have been around and growing in popularity for a number of years. Here are a couple interesting articles on the subject:
New York Times July 17, 2012  "Top Universities Test the Online Appeal of Free"
Here is an article which gives many resources for free courses.

Code Academy is a free place to learn code. Another source is w3schools if you wish to learn web development. They also offer certification in each topic area for $95 per test. Tests must be proctored, and many public libraries are willing to assist you with that.

For more details, visit my MOOCs page in Tammy's Library.  Take care and happy learning!
Tammy



1 comment:

  1. This is really great info! I will be passing along to friends!

    ReplyDelete