Say “hello!” to FutureLearn, the biggest thing to hit virtual education since the virtual learning environment (Moodle, Frog, etc.). Launched in 2013, FutureLearn is a brand new education initiative in the UK, owned by the Open University, which offers new-fangled courses known affectionately as “MOOCs” (Massive Open Online Courses). These specialised short courses are hosted by a variety of top universities, in a range of topics from climate change, to psychology, to mobile game programming.
The completely free courses are open to all ages, abilities and levels of education. On my course, An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics by Lancaster University, students include a 78-year-old looking for something extra to stretch his brain, a computer programmer looking to improve his knowledge of computer-based analyses, and me, a university student looking for a little extra depth of knowledge to complement my linguistics degree.
Before I introduce you to a few of the available courses on the FutureLearn website, I’d like to strongly recommend the tool to you by sharing a little bit about my experience. I have been studying my course for three of its twelve weeks now, and I am absolutely loving it. The course provider, Professor Tony McEnery, has put together an enormous set of fantastic resources which are available to enrolled students at no cost at all. He has recorded a series of lectures; gained access to ebooks from Bloomsbury, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and several other major academic publishers; filmed interviews with significant figures in the field of Corpus Linguistics; and provided computer software downloads with a series of tutorials on their use. There are also discussion forums, weekly quizzes to test understanding, course mentors, and advanced materials for those who want to go into even more depth.
Still not convinced? Take a look at these courses you can enrol on for free today…
To find out more about these courses and the many other courses available, visit https://www.futurelearn.com/ where you can read the full course descriptions and enrol for free.
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Starts on 24th February for 6 weeks, 3 hours per week
Interested in marketing, branding or advertising? On this course “you’ll learn directly from practitioners at companies like Virgin and Google, and watch brandexperts in action. You’ll get a rich mixture of powerful theory and practical tools. With branding changing so rapidly, you’ll get the very latest insights and methods from the converging worlds of technology, design and brand.” [pagebreak]
Starts on 3rd March for 10 weeks, 5 hours per week
The University of Warwick has collaborated with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to create this course which will examine how the world looked and felt in Shakespeare’s time. “Each week, Professor Bate will examine a particular play and a cultural theme alongside a selection of treasures from the Trust’s archives in Stratford-upon-Avon.” Participants will be given access to the Trust’s huge collection of artefacts and archive items, including a look inside Shakespeare’s house. [pagebreak]
Starts on 17th March for 8 weeks, 3 hours per week
This course will explore the different moons in our solar system, how they have been shaped, and the relationship between the Earth and its moon. This will be a particularly interactive course. [pagebreak]
Kitchen Chemistry: Chemistry without a Laboratory by the University of East Anglia
Starts on 14th April for 6 weeks, 2 hours per week
Starts on 19th May for 6 weeks, 5 hours per week
“Discover how modern genetics has revolutionised approaches to the detection and treatment of cancer.” It is recommended that participants in this course have a background in biology or have previously studied the subject.