Jisha Surya
February 18, 2014
Thiruvananthapuram: MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have been a buzz in the global education sector for the past one year. The vast opportunity to learn from the best universities in the world absolutely free of cost, sadly, remains unexplored by the higher education sector in the state. For a few early birds in the state, who are taking the advantage of MOOCs, the online courses are something with focus on knowledge than a certificate.
One of the most popular facilities for online education is Coursera, which offer courses of more than 90 top universities in the world absolutely free of cost. Vipin V S, manager of Pearson Education Services Pvt. Ltd, who did a two-month course on Gamification through Coursera, said of late more and more people are logging into MOOCs which enables people to access courses from best universities at a remote location. “The tutorials were in a video format. I had to submit assignments every week. One of the interesting aspects was an online form, where students can discuss on their subject,” he said.
Most of the subjects taken in Massachusetts Institute of Technology are available free in its open online platform, MIT OpenCourseWare. EdX, another online platform, offers courses from almost 30 top universities.
“Unlike the traditional courses, courses offered through MOOCs are well updated and the best in content. If education is important for you than a certificate, then MOOCs is something for you,” said Mukesh M G, an employee of Technopark, who recently did a diploma in Web Business Development through an online platform Alison. “It was a one-month course. You will be given test after completion of one module. There will be an assessment test after completion of course. If you need certificate, you have to pay according to the course. My diploma certificate could cost around Rs 16,000. I didn’t ask for certificate because my purpose was to know more about web business development,” Mukesh said.
Kerala State Higher Education Council vice chairman T P Sreenivasan said 2013 was year of MOOCs. However, still the universities in Kerala are yet to open up to the scenario. “I haven’t seen are Universities or professors recommending students to take up MOOCs. In a recently organised international seminar, we have conducted sessions on MOOCs for teachers and students,” he said.
V K Adarsh, IT expert and columnist, said that there must be an Open Courseware repository for Universities in the state where students and teachers can upload education resources such as PowerPoint presentations, lectures etc. “There must be an inter-University centre for Open courseware,” he said.
Quality of content, convenience, cost-effectiveness etc… are some of the specialties cited for MOOCs. According to T P Sreenivasan, MOOCs will be more helpful when students are offered credits for doing such courses.
INFO
Coursera.org – Offers more than 600 courses from around 90 top universities in the world. Courses in around 25 subjects are available in 13 languages.
EdX.org - EdX is a non-profit online initiative based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is governed by MIT and Harvard. It offers more than 140 courses in around 25 subjects
MITOpenCourseware (ocw.mit.edu) – OCW is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW has shared materials from more than 2000 courses of MIT.
Stanford online (online.stanford.edu) - Stanford online offers an array of free online courses taught by Stanford faculty.
Duolingo (duolingo.com) - Duolingo offers completely free language education
CodeAcademy (www.codecademy.com) - CodeAcademy teaches programming and coding in free and interactive lessons.
A complete list of free online courses offered by the best universities is available in MOOC List (www.mooc-list.com)
February 18, 2014
Thiruvananthapuram: MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have been a buzz in the global education sector for the past one year. The vast opportunity to learn from the best universities in the world absolutely free of cost, sadly, remains unexplored by the higher education sector in the state. For a few early birds in the state, who are taking the advantage of MOOCs, the online courses are something with focus on knowledge than a certificate.
One of the most popular facilities for online education is Coursera, which offer courses of more than 90 top universities in the world absolutely free of cost. Vipin V S, manager of Pearson Education Services Pvt. Ltd, who did a two-month course on Gamification through Coursera, said of late more and more people are logging into MOOCs which enables people to access courses from best universities at a remote location. “The tutorials were in a video format. I had to submit assignments every week. One of the interesting aspects was an online form, where students can discuss on their subject,” he said.
Most of the subjects taken in Massachusetts Institute of Technology are available free in its open online platform, MIT OpenCourseWare. EdX, another online platform, offers courses from almost 30 top universities.
“Unlike the traditional courses, courses offered through MOOCs are well updated and the best in content. If education is important for you than a certificate, then MOOCs is something for you,” said Mukesh M G, an employee of Technopark, who recently did a diploma in Web Business Development through an online platform Alison. “It was a one-month course. You will be given test after completion of one module. There will be an assessment test after completion of course. If you need certificate, you have to pay according to the course. My diploma certificate could cost around Rs 16,000. I didn’t ask for certificate because my purpose was to know more about web business development,” Mukesh said.
Kerala State Higher Education Council vice chairman T P Sreenivasan said 2013 was year of MOOCs. However, still the universities in Kerala are yet to open up to the scenario. “I haven’t seen are Universities or professors recommending students to take up MOOCs. In a recently organised international seminar, we have conducted sessions on MOOCs for teachers and students,” he said.
V K Adarsh, IT expert and columnist, said that there must be an Open Courseware repository for Universities in the state where students and teachers can upload education resources such as PowerPoint presentations, lectures etc. “There must be an inter-University centre for Open courseware,” he said.
Quality of content, convenience, cost-effectiveness etc… are some of the specialties cited for MOOCs. According to T P Sreenivasan, MOOCs will be more helpful when students are offered credits for doing such courses.
INFO
Coursera.org – Offers more than 600 courses from around 90 top universities in the world. Courses in around 25 subjects are available in 13 languages.
EdX.org - EdX is a non-profit online initiative based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is governed by MIT and Harvard. It offers more than 140 courses in around 25 subjects
MITOpenCourseware (ocw.mit.edu) – OCW is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW has shared materials from more than 2000 courses of MIT.
Stanford online (online.stanford.edu) - Stanford online offers an array of free online courses taught by Stanford faculty.
Duolingo (duolingo.com) - Duolingo offers completely free language education
CodeAcademy (www.codecademy.com) - CodeAcademy teaches programming and coding in free and interactive lessons.
A complete list of free online courses offered by the best universities is available in MOOC List (www.mooc-list.com)
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