Advent calendar #19: Guide to Flickr

Some of the activities during our MOOC Sustainability, Society and You involve sharing images relating to various aspects of sustainability.  To facilitate this, I’ve prepared a guide to setting up a Flickr account, uploading images and posting them on the Futurelearn platform. As a Christmas present we are making this available under a Creative Commons …

Advent calendar #16: Tips on being a student in a MOOC

Today, Heather Moorhouse, one of the MOOC facilitators, offers her tips on getting the most out of your student experience on a MOOC (or NOOC): The most advantageous thing about being a MOOC student is the fact that this learning experience is actually whatever you the participant want it to be. You have the flexibility …

Advent calendar #13: Longing for a MOOC Fairy!

Sarah Speight writes: Over the last few days, Helen Whitehead, Steven Stapleton and myself have been madly building Nottingham’s first MOOC for the FutureLearn platform: ‘Sustainability, Society and You’. We’ve run a Moodle version of the course twice now so you might think it should be easy just to transfer it from Moodle to FutureLearn. …

Advent calendar #12: an innovative educational platform

Subarna Sivapalan is a PhD candidate and teacher in Malaysia who helped to facilitate the NOOC – Nottingham Open Online Course – which was the pilot for the MOOC Sustainability, Society and You which starts on January 6th and can be joined now for free on the FutureLearn website. The NOOC as an innovative educational platform …

Advent calendar #2: Setting up for filming for the MOOC

Lots of videos have been produced for the MOOC Sustainability, Society and You available via FutureLearn from January 6th next year. They are all, of course, themed around different sustainability issues, and many have been filmed in an ordinary house on the campus of the University of Nottingham, where we could look in detail at the …

Advent calendar #1: A December of preparation!

Welcome to December!  As we lead up to our first MOOC, Sustainability, Society and You, in January, we are going to have an Advent calendar throughout the month of December – there’ll be a short informative post every day, with tips on being a student in a MOOC, sneak peeks at content, sustainability news and …

Get ahead – read the free books on Sustainability

The open online courses on sustainability take advantage of a comprehensive series of free books that were produced on different aspects of sustainability. These eBooks and iBooks are free to download and an interesting read whether or not you’re planning to take the Sustainability, Society and You which is available now for booking on the FutureLearn website.  …

Why take a MOOC?

There are many reasons to sign up for a MOOC.  What are yours? My reasons are very similar to the reasons I used to start every academic year by enthusiastically signing up for evening classes.  My evening classes ranged from creative writing to history, to crafts, to fencing and tai chi.  I don’t suppose the …

Introducing Sustainability

This post gives you a flavour of the approach we take towards Sustainability in our course: ‘Sustainability, Society and You’. If you ask six of your friends or family to tell you what ‘Sustainability’ means, you would probably get six different answers. Some of us might say it is about saving the planet or protecting …

Meet the MOOC Team

Nottingham’s first MOOC, ‘Sustainability Society and You’ is truly a collaborative and interdisciplinary affair. Led by Sarah Speight (left), an archaeologist and education specialist, the team includes academics and postgraduate researchers from Engineering, Chemistry, Philosophy, Sociology, Nursing, Mental Health, Business, Geography, Built Environment and Economics, supported by expert Learning Technologists. Every member of the team …