Wow, the third week in 2015 is over already!
Review
So last week, I was differenciating MOOCs and webinars. Now that I evaluated my learning reports on round 3, I noticed some more differences.
In general, MOOCs are courses offered for some time period (like 6 months). During this time, the learner can choose learning activity as desired – only limited by deadlines on assignments. But even those limits often may be exceeded as my own MOOC on coursera showed.
Webinars are live-sessions where you usually have a live-speaker and a chat functionality. The session takes place at a fixed date and time – so the learner is not as free compared to a MOOC.
One report on a webinar showed me one big difference: the webinar of the student was more like an advertising session for a product which was “WordPress” in this case. The speaker was introducing the core benefits of using wordpress and not talking about questions like “How to develop wordpress plugins” etc. For sure, the auditorium could place their questions, but because of the fixed runtime of one hour the speaker was mainly showing slides and therefore had less time for answering questions.
In general, you should take a MOOC if you want to learn over several months and get a deep understanding of certain topics. Webinars are helpful for getting quick overviews.
So, you should be aware of the aims before joining either a webinar or MOOC – does this way of teaching help you? You should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of both.
Goals for next week
So, my last goal was to create a plan for upcoming learning activites. I used my Google Calendar to organize all the exercises and exams that are taking place during the next weeks – the last in the winter terms. Now I’m feeling well-organized an ready for the last “sprints”.
My goal for next week is to read more literature about Scala – especially syntax and more application aspects.