I completed another MOOC!

Couple of months ago, I decided to enrol in a Coursera Specialisation, Python for Everybody, because I’ve not overcommitted myself. The course is developed and taught by Professor Charles Severance, aka Dr Chuck, who is so passionate about education and open educational resources. He has a Coursera logo tattooed on his shoulder, he explained why in his Tedx talk (00’29”).

Yesterday, I completed the first course of the 5-course specialisation (Did I make it sounds like degustation? I have not had breakfast yet). For me, this first part is very easy because of my previous life as a web programmer, all I needed to learn is the syntax, functions, and vocabularies. In my line of work, I deal with data a lot, and automation and getting computers to do the repetitive tasks are important in a lot of things that I do: data cleansing, pattern tracking, batch processing and so on. I have picked up bits and pieces in the last couple of years, I attended Rails Girls to learn Ruby, I have tried Codecademy but never finished any of the courses. I have used various tools to create data visualisations, infographics, and crosswalk, and have been able to achieve most of what I want to do by reverse engineering, lots of Googling, asking silly questions on Stack Overflow etc.

But I’m at a point where I really want something more solid than that to reach my next goal – to create web based, data-driven apps and data visualisations. Python sounds like to cool language for this purpose, so I have been looking for learning materials and courses. I found the Uni of Michigan MOOC on Coursera and decided to do the specialisation, which will cost me $485. To me, the cost is rather modest, considering some one-day training course provided by my professional association usually costs at least half of that amount. Also, I’ve been consciously trying to fix one of my weaknesses – lack of tenacity to complete long term projects. Paying for a course is definitely an incentive for me to stick around and hopefully complete it, it’s going to be an experiment 🙂

I like the title of the MOOC and I believe everyone should learn programming. Should we just rely on professional programmers to do all the programming for us? There are apps and programs that definitely should be left for the professional programmers, but we should have a go at learning how to get the computer to do things for us. In the old days, makers can make things by learning how to build things by hand and create something physical, e.g. knitting and lego. In today’s world, if you don’t know how to program, you can’t make things in the digital world and eventually be left behind.

I have done quite a few online courses and I can’t say I enjoyed all of them. I really like Dr Chuck’s teaching style, he explains ideas very clearly in multiple ways (but you don’t feel like being talked at like a three year-old), he’s humorous and engaging. The moderators, teaching assistants and fellow students are very helpful and supportive. The MOOC is very well put together and I highly recommend anyone to take the MOOCs, the first 2 courses of the Python specialisation are free.

My MOOC experience

I have recently completed the Leading Strategic Innovation in Organisation MOOC from Vanderbilt University on the Coursera platform, the first ever MOOC I have completed. The title of the course is self explanatory. It didn’t only cover how to come up with a lot of ideas and be innovative, but also on how to identify, manage, and overcome the contraints of innovation in organisation in order to maximise the chance of success.

I have enrolled in two other MOOCs before this one, but failed to complete them. I dropped out of the first course because I found out I wasn’t interested in the materials two weeks in. As for the other course, I enrolled in it a while ago, and when it actually started, I couldn’t find time to do it. So I made a note to re-enrol when it opens for enrolment again later this year.

I found out about the Leading Strategic Innovation in Organisation MOOC late last year, and thought I’d be benefited from it because I’m the project leader of an “innovation” project. I’m also interested in innovation in general and am keen to brush up on things I learned from business school – many moons ago.

It’s an 8-week course, apparently the first ever Coursera MOOC with group project assessment (now that’s innovative!). I Yammer’ed it and was lucky enough to have formed a group with my colleague, Kay. I could see from the discussion forum people are having trouble forming groups, many of them ended up working with participants from other countries, I don’t know how they did it!

So we kicked off early March, then I realised how demanding it was. We have to watch the video lectures, required reading, optional reading (which is chapters from Owen’s book, Creative people must be stopped!). We are also required to complete a survey, a short quiz, a short reflection essay, plus team project component every week. In the past 8 weeks I spent most of my spare time on this MOOC. The course materials were very interesting. Owen was a pleasure to watch/listen to, very charismatic. He explains complicated concepts in different ways and made things easier to understand and digest. Looking back, I’ve learned a lot in just 8 weeks. I plan to write about them in this blog when I get around to it 🙂

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the group project component. Kay was a fantastic and supportive team member, I would say that I was able to complete this course because I worked with her. When you’re in a team, you don’t want to let your team member down, and that’s what kept me going.

Will I do it again? I definitely will. Overall it’s a great experience. It doesn’t matter the platform was a bit clunky and confusing, it doesn’t matter sometimes you get “funky” peers who might assess your work using their own scale or give you a zero without telling you why. The fact that you’re learning is all that matters.

Here’s a link to our very simple project presentation. I’ve been wanting to do a Prezi for a while, thanks to Kay who suggested it. With very limited time, I think we’ve done a good job!

My next MOOC, Crafting an effective writer: tools of the trade, starts today. What about you?