A Wannabe Linguist Blog

Hello there! Today I want to talk about MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses). MOOC is an online course with technically unlimited number of participants that includes various materials, programs, services and interactive forums. MOOCs provide participants with course materials that are normally used in a conventional education setting - lectures, videos, study materials, problem sets and so on. So, what are advantages of MOOC? They are:
-Courses are mostly free
-Courses are offered by professionals
-Ease of access
-Learner’s performance is easily monitored
-Flexibility for learner
As for disadvantages, they are:
-Absence of personalized approach
-Language barrier sometimes can be a problem
-High abandon ratio, as flexibility may not be stimulating enough

Now if you are short on time, have a difficult-to-build-around-schedule or simply cannot find any other way to learn some field that is interesting for you, this is a very nice opportunity. And if you are to take it, I think it would be best to know what are some of the most popular platforms:

1) Canvas
Canvas puts a great emphasis on openness and accessibility of their courses:
-Open entry and open access. Open entry for learners around the globe and continual access to course content after the course end date.
-Open content. Open licensing options and content sharing to Canvas Commons where other instructors reuse, revise, remix, retain, and redistribute content.
-Open platform and ecosystem. Open platform to integrate and innovate with third-party tools.
-Open data. Open, de-identified Canvas Network data for researchers to analyze and synthesize.
-Platform neutrality.

2) Coursera
Coursera is one of the biggest MOOCs out there. It has over 3900 courses while edX has 2800 and this advantage is massive. The quality of education is also top notch, it is hard to complain when the content is produced by certified professionals on the topic. The flexibility for student here is also a very good feature. And, of course, I should mention that Coursera offers courses in which you can achieve a degree. While some of courses are free, the pricing on others there is really inconsistent, ranging from 40 to 90 dollars per month.

3) edX
Edx deals with professional education courses, has exclusive services for high-schools, is partnered with some huge corporations (i.e. Microsoft) and is focused on allowing people to learn “anytime, anywhere”. While the overall quality of courses is extremely good you should still check if the course is verified, as it may be a bit on a lower side of quality otherwise. There are also reports of some platform crashes, so you should be aware of that. As for pricing, most of the courses are free with certificate available for purchase after the course for 50-300 dollars.