Take interesting courses, follow a passion or a hobby online at your leisure, from top international universities, for FREE…. MOOCs, what exactly does it mean? Massive Open Online Courses is what it stands for. The Internet has had access to free online courses for a long time, but the quality and quantity of courses has changed significantly.
Sounds impossible, like there has to be a catch, but no, this is a legitimate tech tip. Thanks to a few major players in the social entrepreneurship online sector, anyone can benefit from taking classes through top universities worldwide at no cost. Below for your convenience we offer a summary on two that we think are worthwhile.
Coursera (http://www.coursera.org) has made it their goal to give everyone access to a world-class education that so far has been available only to a select few. Their mission is to empower people with education. Coursera offers classes in Arts, Biology & Life Sciences, Business & Management, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics & Finance, Education, Energy & Earth Sciences, Food & Nutrition, Health & Society, Humanities, Information Technology & Design, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Music & Film, Physical & Earth Science, Physics, Social Sciences, Statistics & Data Analysis.
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Within four (4) months of launch, Coursera had drawn in over a million users, out pacing Facebook or Twitter. Coursera is elite, offering classes only from "top" institutions. Currently, Coursera is the leader of the pack in this marketplace. The majority of classes here are indeed free, a few require payment for a "certification" that you completed the course.
edX (http: www.edx.org) is a not-for-profit enterprise borne of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that offers classes/learning that is designed for interactive online study. The two institutions plans include using edX to research how students learn and how technology can transform learning on-campus and worldwide. Their research is our benefit. Quality is the main focus here, and the education partners include universities like Harvard, MIT, UC Berkeley, University of Texas at the core, with new additions including Wellesley, Georgetown, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, McGill University, University of Toronto, Australian National University, Delft University of Technology, and Rice University. Each member of the "consortium" offers classes on the edX platform as an "X University".
