I chose to take a beginner’s Chinese course using Coursera. After registering my account, I saw some free courses that I could participate in. I chose Chinese for Beginners. After clicking in, you can see some course descriptions and a recorded introduction from the instructor. The students are told what they can learn and what they can achieve by taking the course. Because this does not require students to study in real time, the instructor in the video mentions that students can take the course from anywhere in the world.
Once you enter, you can see that the teaching content is divided into many weeks, with different content and objectives each week. Basically, you learn by watching one video after another. A window to set their own goals will then appear, and students can set the frequency they want to study. After watching the video there will be a test to test and evaluate. Students are required to keep their promises in order to achieve fairness in the test.
Unlike the traditional teaching model, it has a forum for students to post their ideas and discuss them. And it is a more interesting way to learn than just listening to lectures and reading books. There are pauses for interaction on the way to watching the video. And you can quiz yourself afterwards. Including these videos you can set your own goals at your own pace.
I think it’s a combination of both. Because while learning is more oriented towards learning and copying information from the professor, which is xMOOC and after learning students can discuss with each other which is cMOOC.
I think it is open because it allows students to learn and discuss freely. And there are no restrictions on access and learning. People from all over the world can learn and there is no age limit. The discussions among students are also very meaningful because we all have different backgrounds.
I chose this activity because, I was curious about this way of learning. Therefore I chose to attend one in person. After I participated I found that this way of learning is really interesting and it has no limitations. For example, if I want to learn after school, I can easily get the knowledge. And it’s not stressful with the categories and the way it’s taught.