Free Education with MOOC’s

Have you ever wondered about free and easy course options, where you can access courses from anywhere in the world at any time you choose?

Well, it is here and is called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC’s). This means that anyone anywhere in the world can go online and register to take any course for a single credit, a credit towards a degree or just because you’re a life-long learner. It has unlimited worldwide participation with no defined barriers to admission and definitely no waiting lists for courses. Courses offered are in areas of study, including Computers, Arts, Humanities, Economics and Sciences.

All you need is a computer that can access the World Wide Web. There is a choice of various subjects and courses in any language. Instruction is in the form of recorded video lectures and allows access to free use of textbooks for the duration of the course.

Renowned universities around the world develop courses with superior content. Professors spend hundreds of hours recording lectures in video format. Basic approaches to evaluation are peer reviews, group collaboration, quizzes and online exams. One can work on courses in the comfort of their own homes, in their own time and at a good pace.

Course times could be as short as 8 weeks. One can connect with people globally to share and collaborate on an area of study. Completion and good marks for courses could lead students to the option of fee-paying courses. The only payments students might make would be payment for a proctored exam if they choose a course needing proctoring. They might pay a small fee if they choose to receive a certificate.

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MOOC’s is a recent development with providers such as Coursera, Udacity, EduKart, and edX partnering with top universities around the world, such as Stanford, Yale, Harvard, to reach out to the world. By Oct 2013, Coursera alone had 1.3 million learners enrolled.

On the downside, not all people have access to technology. A certain level of digital literacy is needed to be able to navigate the site and engage in the program online. As it’s a course that is done at the learner’s pace, motivation and initiative are needed to keep working and completing the course.

There is a lack of interaction with professors even online as a result of huge online enrollments. Many find the quizzes not creative enough. Where peer- grading is needed, it is found to be not reliable enough.

Overall, it is found that the completion rates are less than 10%. There is a huge enrollment globally, but there is a steep dropout in the first week of signing up for a course. This is due to the fact that people get in as a result of curiosity at the onset and find soon after that it’s not for them.

Courses are often challenging and not suitable for just anybody. People lead busy lives and a free course is an easy choice to drop.

All in all, it’s an opportunity to expand ones scope as a life-long learner. It’s a learning challenge for somebody wanting to learn but not be tied down to time, money or travel demands. Go ahead and google 'MOOC's'.