Orlando Tech News
-The rise of free online education-
2014
In the tech world there is a term that many insiders know and use called: Disruptor.
When a new company is a disruptive firm or a disruptor to an industry, it means that this new idea or product shook up or will shake up the industry in which it is being applied. A good example of a disruptor in my opinion would be Google. Before Google came along if you needed a phone number for the pizza restaurant down the street, you would simply pull out your handy dandy phonebook. Browse through this book until you reached page 11880 and walaaa! Then came 411 and that allowed people to access phone numbers easier with out having to dig into the phone book. So 411 would be the disruptor to the phone book and Google would be the disruptor to both.
Through out tech history, you can find many examples of disruptive technologies. A good recent disruptive technology are Moocs. Mooc stands for Massive Open Online Course. The main differentiator between most Moocs and typical colleges are that they are free. These online Moocs actually allow a person to take a course on a particular subject and in many cases receive a certification or certificate for that particular course. Now I honestly do not envision free Moocs replacing typical colleges anytime soon, because I would hate to have surgery on my pinky toe by a Doctor that took a 6 week online course over the Internet. No really I don’t lol. However for folks that are looking to learn a new skill or possibly learn something valuable that they may be able to apply in the real world, this may be a pot of gold. A good example of how a typical high school graduate can utilize one of these courses to their advantage when applying for an entry level position with in a company would be say a course on basic management. So that when he or she applies for a job at least the person hiring them can see that they took the initiative to take a course for several weeks and went out of their way to increase their skill set. Even college educated folks can take advantage of this technology. Say you have a Degree in accounting and want to work for an environmental firm. You are more than likely to be hired as an accountant at this environmental firm if you took a 8 week free course on environmental law or history.
A great example of a free Mooc is Coursera.org
Coursera is an online Mooc that actually works with major colleges like Duke University and Harvard to bring some of their online courses to you for free. Coursera has a very simple interface and very user friendly. Most of the courses require that you take or participate in weekly quizzes or projects. You are able to communicate with other students in your class and in some classes require that you work together as a team on certain projects. From financing to basic programming for Android you will find all types of courses that you can take for free to expand your knowledge and help increase the chances of being hired for a new job. Even though I deal with sales and technology on a daily basis and that is my specialty, I felt that I needed to expand my knowledge base out side of sales and technology. I took a course on microeconomics principles on Coursera and that allowed me to understand the financial markets way better and what makes the economy and customers tick. This crucially expanded my knowledge of supply and demand and took it to the next level using Coursera, so I do want to throw that in. The classes are lecture styled and often times the lecture will pause to throw in a quick question to make sure you are paying attention.
Do you know someone that can spare several weeks to take a free online course to possibly increase their skill set on a resume? If so check out some of the best Moocs I came across.
Coursera.org – A free online Mooc that participates with many major colleges including some Ivy leagues
Udacity – One of the first free Moocs around
Edx.org – A very popular Mooc with a variety of courses sponsored by MIT
Here is a link for Moocs associated with elite colleges
Now I would like to finish this off with this statement. Moocs can provide new opportunities for people from all walks of life from all around the globe to learn a new skill set, and this is why I believe this is one of my favorite disruptive technologies. Thank you for reading and please visit back soon for my new podcast.
Sincerely,
Kedesh
Kedesh Ortiz
HypeOrlando
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