You Are Here :

MOOCs

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) give people the chance to learn new things with short courses presented by experts.
They started in America a few years ago and have developed rapidly. They now cover a huge range of subjects.
Studying in a MOOC gives everyone, including people who have difficulty in getting out, the opportunity to keep their brains active. But within the U3A the aim should always be "Uniting Third Agers" so the main attraction of MOOCs is as a means of promoting discussions in a live group.
Even the largest U3A groups struggle to provide the widest range of courses for members; demand always seems to outstrip supply. Some MOOCs are already being used by U3A groups.
Follow the link to  MOOCs on Offer to see a list of currently available MOOCs.
Follow the link to Case Studies to see how other groups are already using MOOCs.
News
Although participants in FutureLearn courses have to register by the course launch date, they have confirmed that course materials will then remain available and they can take as long to complete the course as they like. Once “live” the MOOC will remain available as long as the University which wrote the course wishes it to. It could therefore be left up for 6-9 months to enable U3A members to log in weekly, monthly or as intermittently as they prefer !
We are in discussions with Royal Holloway, University of London, about courses being designed at present to run on FutureLearn. It is, we are told, possible that there could be dedicated U3A forums for members from across the UK to engage with one another in these courses.

  • ALISON

    ALISON is an Irish MOOCs platform offering 750+ online courses from a wide range of course providers (including OpenLearn and Google. Courses from Accounting to Yoga Exercises.

    Course headings include :

    • Business & Enterprise Skills;
    • Digital Literacy & IT Skills;
    • Personal Development & Soft Skills;
    • Languages;
    • Health & Safety Compliance;
    • Health Literacy;
    • Financial & Economic Literacy;
  • Class Central

    Class Central is an American MOOC platform offering over 3,000 courses.

    Course headings include :

    • Computer Science (637 courses);
    • Health & Medicine (489 courses);
    • Mathematics (231 courses);
    • Business Management (1086 courses);
    • Humanities (625 courses);
    • Engineering (402 courses);
    • Science (660 courses);
    • Education & Teaching (589 courses);
    • Social Sciences (625 courses);
    • Art & Design (412 courses);
    • Programming (483 courses)
    • Personal Development (158 courses);
  • Code Academy

    Code Academy teaches you to learn to code (program computers) in a range of computer languages.

  • Coursera

    Coursera allows you to browse the "world’s best courses", many from US universities. It currently has over 16 million  learners.
    Courses are listed under the following headings :

  • Duolingo

    Duolingo offers courses in all the following languages :

    Spanish

    French

    German

    Italian

    Portuguese

    Dutch

    Irish

    Danish

    Swedish

    Russian

    Polish

    Rumanian

    Greek

    Esperanto

    Turkish

    Vietnamese

    Hebrew

    Norwegian

    Ukrainian

    Welsh
  • EdX

    Although the EdX MOOC platform started at MIT, it now has over 650 short courses from partner universities around the world.

    Courses are at three levels :

  • FutureLearn

    FutureLearn is private company wholly owned by The Open University. It offers a diverse selection of courses from leading universities and cultural institutions from around the world.

  • Iversity

    Iversity is a platform for learning based in Europe.

  • Khan Academy

    The Khan Academy site was originally aimed at school-age learners but has gone considerably beyond its original offerings and now includes subjects such as Art History and Economics. (You have to register to find out what is on offer.)

  • MIT Open Courseware

    OCW makes the materials used in the teaching of MIT’s subjects available on the Web.  (MIT were the first institution to launch open courseware and this site covers only the the university's own taught courses, MIT courses set up for e-learning are on EDX - see alternative link.

    Course topics are :

    • Business
    • Energy
    • Engineering
    • Fine Arts
    • Health and Medicine
    • Humanities
    • Mathematics
    • Science
    • Social Science
    • Society
    • Teaching and Education
  • Open Culture

    Open Culture offers both courses and free cultural & educational media (audio books, text books and films).

    Free courses are offered in the following subject areas :

  • Open University of Australia

    Open University of Australia offers a wide range of free courses; some with a southern hemisphere perspective, including Marine and Antarctic Science and Indigenous Studies: Australia and New Zealand. There is also a Chinese Language and Culture course.

  • Open Learn

    OpenLearn offers over 800 courses (including some extracts from Open University courses). Format of courses on OpenLearn is instruction rather than discussion but the content is good. This link will also get you to material to accompany OU/BBC co-productions through the Radio and TV Events tab.

  • Stanford Online

    Stanford Online offers a variety of professional education opportunities in conjunction with many of the University’s schools and departments.

  • Woolf Institute

    The Woolf Institute is concerned with the study of inter-faith issues. There are Online Short Courses which offer a unique opportunity to engage in the study of relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims. (These are available to use any time.) There are also some e-learning programmes where there is a set time period.

Copyright : Sevenoaks U3A 2011 -2017

Link to the Sitemap page
Link to the Terms of Use page

Site  Updated : 2nd May 2017