I am a great fan of MOOCs, massive open on-line courses; I’ve done several, Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets from Brown University (Coursera), Shakespeare’s World from Warwick University (FutureLearn), and now I’m doing a couple more. I did start a course about European literature; however, there was a very heavy reading list, and it was just too much for me to read all the books on the list, and also, I confess, i didn’t like many of them enough to want to read them! Which is naughty of me really – except that I was doing it as a leisure activity and out of general interest, not for certification or an award at the end. The other course I started, which just fell at completely the wrong time, was Forensic Psychology. It was really interesting but I just had too many other commitments, one after the other to keep up with it. I will, however return to it, if it’s available again.
Now I am doing Hadrian’s Wall from Newcastle Uni, which as I’ve been to Hadrian’s Wall a couple of times, and know a tiny bit about the Romans and their history, is very interesting. I am also doing a course on Marine archaeology from Southampton University; I like terrestrial archaeology, and would love to study it properly, but degrees are so expensive. I know little or nothing about marine archaeology, and have never really thought much about it, except when I’ve watched TV programmes where there is an element of underwater investigation…
This course, wow!!! It is amazing! Not only am I learning so much, in general and in particular, about archaeology of all sorts, but I am having my eyes opened to so much more. It is really challenging, but in a good way; it is really making me think and consider all sorts of aspects of all sorts of things, for example how we view the past, how we consider artefacts which are ‘found’, how we compare people who have lived before us – their lives and society, to our own and what we can and should learn… Oh my goodness! There is so much – there are a lot of links to other sites, other articles, other resources and information. I am having to read many of the articles at least twice because they are so interesting and so packed with information and new aspects of the subject which I have never considered. The delivery of the ‘lectures’ through videos is clear but does not ‘talk down’ to the student, and because they are videos they can be re-viewed… I wish I could have done that when I was doing my actual degree!
Here is the link to the particular course, but you can also find other FutureLearn courses too:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks
Lois Elsden 