I lived on Deer Isle full time for ten years. I am a Maine native, from Aroostook County, and I know cold and isolation well. Much about living on Deer Isle in the off season is wonderful. In fact, I still say that July and August are my least favorite months, and the day after Labor Day my favorite, when the traffic suddenly thins and I see people who have been busy making a living and entertaining summer visitors for the past couple of months.
It's hard to believe, but when I moved away in the early 1990's (I got a taste of how nice Florida was in the winter after my parents retired there), I had never sent an email and the Internet was just a rumor. Even though I had bought one of the first Macintosh's in 1982 and thus became computer literate, it took moving to Tallahassee and Freenet there to first get online (SLOOOOW dial-up, all text driven, hard to imagine now).
Even more than the connectivity to others and the world that email and the Net affords, beyond Amazon and online shopping (the UPS truck knows my driveway by heart), not to mention online dating (I met my husband Drew on Match.com in 1998), the most recent innovation is nothing short of miraculous. Yet few still seem to know about MOOC's. Do you?
MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses. Coursera.org is the major player in the field, with Edx.org (with the really big name universities like Harvard and MIT) is a strong second place. See one of Coursera's founders Daphne Koller talk about MOOC's in this TED talk.
Essentially, MOOC's offer real college and university courses, in somewhat real time (the lectures are recorded, but there is a real beginning and end to the course) with assignments, chat forums, etc. And get this: They are completely FREE. That's right, free. The courses are open to anyone in the world with computer and Internet access. The first course I took had 180,000 students world-wide sign up. Now, the drop out rate is high, for various reasons, but imagine the results if only 10% finish! The MOOC's are trying to figure out how to give people real credit for the courses, that will come fast. But for the time being, access to top level courses and material, for FREE, is unbelievable.
I have taken so far: A History of the World since 1300, A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior, The Modern and the Postmodern, Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society, Introduction to Art: Concepts & Techniques. Right now, Drew and I are both taking The Science of Gastronomy. The instructor is from University of Hong Kong.
Now, when I say "took," what I mean is that I watched all the lectures and did the readings. I did not do all the assignments or take all the quizzes or tests. But that is okay, it was all I wanted. Like auditing a course without having to drive to campus, find a place to park, and sit in a crowded class with a bunch of undergraduates who were struggling to stay awake.
What a difference living in island isolation would have been with MOOC's.
It's hard to believe, but when I moved away in the early 1990's (I got a taste of how nice Florida was in the winter after my parents retired there), I had never sent an email and the Internet was just a rumor. Even though I had bought one of the first Macintosh's in 1982 and thus became computer literate, it took moving to Tallahassee and Freenet there to first get online (SLOOOOW dial-up, all text driven, hard to imagine now).
Even more than the connectivity to others and the world that email and the Net affords, beyond Amazon and online shopping (the UPS truck knows my driveway by heart), not to mention online dating (I met my husband Drew on Match.com in 1998), the most recent innovation is nothing short of miraculous. Yet few still seem to know about MOOC's. Do you?
MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses. Coursera.org is the major player in the field, with Edx.org (with the really big name universities like Harvard and MIT) is a strong second place. See one of Coursera's founders Daphne Koller talk about MOOC's in this TED talk.
Essentially, MOOC's offer real college and university courses, in somewhat real time (the lectures are recorded, but there is a real beginning and end to the course) with assignments, chat forums, etc. And get this: They are completely FREE. That's right, free. The courses are open to anyone in the world with computer and Internet access. The first course I took had 180,000 students world-wide sign up. Now, the drop out rate is high, for various reasons, but imagine the results if only 10% finish! The MOOC's are trying to figure out how to give people real credit for the courses, that will come fast. But for the time being, access to top level courses and material, for FREE, is unbelievable.
I have taken so far: A History of the World since 1300, A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior, The Modern and the Postmodern, Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society, Introduction to Art: Concepts & Techniques. Right now, Drew and I are both taking The Science of Gastronomy. The instructor is from University of Hong Kong.
Now, when I say "took," what I mean is that I watched all the lectures and did the readings. I did not do all the assignments or take all the quizzes or tests. But that is okay, it was all I wanted. Like auditing a course without having to drive to campus, find a place to park, and sit in a crowded class with a bunch of undergraduates who were struggling to stay awake.
What a difference living in island isolation would have been with MOOC's.
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