MOOCing

[Ulick]

Not sure if anyone is interested in or has taken some of these. For those who don't know MOOCs are Massive Open Online Courses - essentially HE distance learning courses that can be taken for free. Currently the leading provider of these is a company called Coursera https://www.coursera.org/ though there are a few other smaller and start-up currently on the go.

I've a vested interest in that I currently doing work for Queen's in Belfast and a new company called FutureLearn which is today launching the platform and course programme.
If you get a chance give us a wee like on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/QubMoocs) or Google+ (https://plus.google.com/u/0/104920601012127493681).
Sign-up for new courses on the FutureLearn website: www.futurelearn.com

Having gotten the shameless plug out of the way has anyone any thoughts on the Mooc stuff? 

[theskull1]

Some people may want to know if you're more of a Heinz Wolff or a Brian Cox man first Ulick.

Must take a look

[john mcgill]

I've been lurking on the MIT and Stanford MOOC sites.  I love the idea of accessing theoretical concepts to put alongside practice.  I find the courses offered a bit esoteric and dip in and out.  I'm not sure I'd want to study for a full degree this way.

[muppet]

Very recently started a short course on https://www.udemy.com/courses

I am quite impressed with it so far and hope to do a few more courses in the future.

[Ulick]

This is our latest offering. We're hoping it'll go down well with the Fleggers:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=227186860785478

[deiseach]

Some people may want to know if you're more of a Heinz Wolff or a Brian Cox man first Ulick.

Definitely Heinz Volff, er, Wolff. Something about Brian Cox creeps me out.

[Billys Boots]

This is a fabulous idea - I may finally get my head around building databases. 

[Cold tea]

This is a fabulous idea - I may finally get my head around building databases.

Managing and maintaining them is where the headaches start. 

[Billys Boots]

This is a fabulous idea - I may finally get my head around building databases.

Managing and maintaining them is where the headaches start. 

Don't I know ... 

[Ulick]

Our latest course finally went live on Monday and we're fairly proud of this little offering:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/identity-conflict-and-public-space-contest-and-transformation/

Was pretty much designed and built by me, him and a student so I didn't have the resources to build everything I'd hoped. However seeing the quality of the contributions from users all over the world particularly Africa, India and Latin America has me rethinking my skepticism of the whole Mooc thing. They can't continue in current format and will eventually become commercialised in some way but this at least has been enjoyable because I didn't have to worry about pulling in money from it.

You can still sign-up for to this one for free until the end of next week and everything is mobile accessible so you can pretty much take the whole course via smart phone.