This semester, Buffalo State College offered one of the first Open SUNY MOOCs through Coursera, an education platform that offers free courses from top colleges and universities. To refresh our memories, a MOOC (which stands for “massive open online course”) is an interactive online course that has the potential to engage many, many students at one time, allowing for users to easily implement peer reviews, virtual group collaborations, and educational feedback into their coursework. In the ever expanding world of online education, MOOCs can act as a free, open access introduction into a customizable education, as registration is open to all and you can take classes nearly anywhere with an Internet connection.
Over 40,000 students around the world had enrolled “Ignite Your Everyday Creativity,” developed and taught by Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. John Cabra of the college’s International Center for Studies in Creativity. The goal of the course is to help students recognize, develop and act upon the creativity that they already possess.
The success of this course was recently highlighted in an article that originally appeared in the Buffalo News on March 28, 2015, by staff reporter Jay Tokasz. Read about how “Tens of thousands take first ‘massive open online course’ offered in Western New York.”
Online education has become one of the best alternatives.
I have started to take MOOC mostly through coursera and have really enjoyed them. I took one on the Science of Happiness. It seems to me this is an excellent way for people who don’t have much time or money to get access to great universities.