I’ve been impressed with the pace of development of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and have even signed up for and studied some subjects through various platforms. But what I wasn’t aware of until recently, was that there’s a handy MOOC aggregator that’s been developed which looks across all the available courses online and presents a single interface for searching across them.

This resource is called Class Central and includes courses from the following providers:

Through Class Central, I’ve been able to discover a wider range of courses and have signed up to future classes as a means of continuing my professional development.  Most are free, although Udacity seem to charge for a lot of their content. The other suppliers typically offer an unverified programme which doesn’t cost you anything, but you don’t get the certificate at the end to demonstrate you’ve studied. The certificate is less important than the learning for me, so I wasn’t too bothered by this.

Many of the world’s leading universities and centres of higher education have made a selection of their course materials available online. Live courses offer an interactive element with assessed coursework and tests, whereas archived courses are still accessible with self-study being achieved through the blended learning approach of text and video material. 

At least two of the MOOC providers listed above – Coursera and edX – offer iOS apps which I’ve found particularly good, not least because they allow you to download course material to the app so that you can watch videos and read documents offline when you don’t have an internet connection. 

So, if you haven’t explored the world of MOOC’s yet, I implore you to give them a go. Challenge yourself and learn something new!