I am taking a Massive Open Online Course “Web Science” by the University of Southampton at the moment via the new platform FutureLearn. In order to keep my progress organised organised, I’ll use my personal blog to publish assignements, reflections and other ideas about the subject.
To start with a few first impressions of the course:
- I’ve done several online courses so far (even finished some of them – however, I don’t necessarily think that you only benefit from a MOOC if you manage to complete it) – and I find the Futurelearn layout, interface, navigation and the entire “look&feel” very appealing. Maybe with the exception of Udacity, Futurelearn is the platform that I like best so far…and Udacity is extremely hard to beat, since I have been an early follower and learned so many things that directly impacted my professional life.
- An informal community for FLwebsci participants was established on Google+ and has been very active so far. People introducing themselves, looking around for students with similar backgrounds or origins, greeting each other and using +1 as virtual smile…it did (and still does) feel like the first day in college. Exciting, even before the first lessons go online.
- Why did I sign up for the course? Firstly, because I sign up for a MOOC approximately every other week. There is so much out there I might find interesting, and if I manage to get a glimpse of only half of the subjects I enrolled in, it’s an amazing amount of knowledge and impressions I wouldn’t get otherwise. As I said before, I do not necessarily consider a MOOC I drop out from as a failed attempt. However, the Web Science course strikes directly in the very center of my personal interests, my everyday life, my passions…born in 1981, I am allowed myself to just count myself among the generation of “Digital Natives”, earning a living as an education technologist, and when it comes to the WWW, I can only quote post on G+ by a fellow student: “I use it everyday for everything”.
Try something new. Every day. 