First HEA report on research into MOOCs
March 17, 2014
The Higher Education Academy has published its research into learning and teaching of Massive Open Online courses (MOOCS) and finds that ‘the teacher persists’. The Pedagogy of the MOOC: the UK View by Sian Bayne and Jen Ross from the University of Edinburgh also contains snapshots of five current UK MOOCs with an emphasis on the …
Learning sustainably and about sustainability
February 17, 2014
In week 6 of the Sustainability, Society and You course (which runs again later in the year) we looked at sustainable learning and learning for sustainability. There is evidence to suggest that online learning is sustainable in the sense of its environmental footprint (less travel, less printing out of learning materials, and fewer resources in …
Sustainability and wellbeing – some links
January 29, 2014
In this week’s Sustainability Society and You MOOC topic, Organisations and sustainability, participants are invited to share links that they have found relating to several topics. Two of these topics are “sustainability and mental health” and sustainability and exercise”, both of which have prompted people to share some great resources on wellbeing and sustainability. Here …
How “likes” can help you learn
January 17, 2014
Like other social platforms, FutureLearn has a “Like” function. This means whenever you read something you agree with or think is well put, meaningful or significant in any way, you can respond to it, but you can also “Like” it. For each list of Comments or Discussion you can then sort posts according to how …
Scooping Sustainability
January 9, 2014
In order to try to curate some of the blog posts, tweets, etc. coming out of our current FutureLearn MOOC, I’ve set up a Scoop.it page for Sustainability, Society & You and am attempting to add to it posts, pages and RSS feeds of relevance. Let me know if you have written about the course …
Sustainability, Society and You – learning across cultures and contexts
January 8, 2014
Sarah Speight writes: The University of Nottingham’s first MOOC got off to a flying start on January 6th with lots of interaction between learners around the world – New Zealand, America, Latvia, Australia, Pakistan, Bahrain, Egypt, all corners of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iran, Venezuela, Colombia…. too many to mention. We have developed the course …
How to be successful as a student in a MOOC
January 7, 2014
I was looking at Dave Cormier’s five point plan for getting the most out of a MOOC as a student. It makes a lot of sense. Here’s what it might look like for a participant in Sustainability, Society and You, which started this week. 1. ORIENT Each MOOC takes place in a platform that you …
MOOCs are themselves sustainable
January 6, 2014
As we launch our ‘Sustainability, Society and You’ MOOC today through FutureLearn, it is heartening to think that the course itself is sustainable! Online learning, such as in MOOCs, is itself eco-friendly as evidenced in recent studies conducted by the Open University in the UK. Researchers found that distance learning courses consume 90% less energy than …
How to join the discussion in Sustainability, Society and You
January 5, 2014
Join the discussion! There are no real right and wrong answers in the field of sustainability. In the ‘Sustainability, Society and You’ MOOC (starting tomorrow through FutureLearn), we invite you to look at the evidence and make your own decisions especially about the actions you can take to become more sustainable and influence our society to …
Make time for the MOOC and avoid food waste!
January 4, 2014
Meal planning is a great way to avoid wasting food – and saves money and time too. Wondering what to cook for dinner can be a minor but irritating cause of stress all day. Having a plan means it’s easy to make a shopping list, cutting down shopping time and decisions as well as food …
