MOOC

 What is a MOOC?

The abbreviation MOOC consists of four separate terms.

Massive: this form of online learning involves a large number of students, unlimited by geographical location.

Open: online training is free for everyone.

Online (online): distance learning courses are conducted using online communication tools. All materials are freely available in electronic form.

Course (course): structured and orderly presentation of information with specific goals, work rules and time constraints, which, however, may change for each individual participant.

Advantages of online learning and MOOC:

Interactivity.

Useful connections.

Quick feedback and evaluation.

The best teachers in the world.

Free online training.

The latest specialties.

Structured presentation of the material.

Free training schedule.

Mixed online learning system.

Disadvantages of online learning and MOOC:

Independent development of educational material.

Lack of total control over the execution of tasks.

For those who desire a free education and have the motivation, the following includes the: Top 10 Sites for Information about MOOCs:

Udemy Free Courses

Itunes Free Courses

Stanford Free Courses

UC Berkeley Free Courses

MIT Free Courses

Duke Free Courses

Harvard Free Courses

UCLA Free Courses

Yale Free Courses

Carnegie Mellon Free Courses

Now we are starting to see how the MOOC product is penetrating both the corporate and private spheres. Companies like Google and Tenaris use MOOCs to train their employees, MongoDB trains developers through a MOOC environment, and thousands of private instructors teach classes on sites like Udemy.

These are an examples of the most popular MOOC platforms:

Canvas.net

Canvas is an LMS like Blackboard or Moodle. It’s the platform and what’s important is what you do with it. It’s only as effective as the teacher who’s using it and to that end, you always want to ask yourself, what do I want students to do with it. There are tons of tutorials and advice out there about how to use it effectively. In my experience, it’s better than Blackboard in terms of useability but in reality these are just tools like any other. We’ve all seen a teacher do an activity that was wildly successful, then we try it with out class.

Coursera.org

Coursera is an online learning platform offering self-guided projects and on-demand courses in various subjects. The platform collaborates with universities and companies, including Amazon Web Services, Google and IBM, to provide courses.

In addition to taking individual courses, users can obtain professional certificates and bachelor's or master's degrees online through the platform. Coursera also offers MasterTrack certificates, which divide parts of master's programs into online modules. If a user is accepted to a full master's program, MasterTrack's work can be counted towards his or her degree.

edX.org

edX is an American massive open online course (MOOC) provider created by Harvard and MIT. It hosts online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide student body, including some courses at no charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform. edX runs on the free Open edX open-source software platform. 2U is the parent company, with edX operating as its global online learning platform and primary brand for products and services.