With the new school year in full swing, students should also start preparing for college and beyond. Media specialist and technology integrator Mr. Bhatti thinks he has a way for the students of Prep to broaden their horizons by taking college classes for free. How could this be? MOOCs are the answer. I recently sat down with Prep’s Apple expert Mr. Akram Bhatti to dig a little deeper into what exactly MOOCs are all about.

Mr. Bhatti said that MOOC stands for, “Massive Open Online Courses.” He also said that the purpose is to simulate a college course online. The best part of the MOOCs are that students don’t need much. All they need is an iPad or laptop and simply an internet connection.
There are several different websites that provide MOOCs, including, but not limited to, udemy.com, coursera.org, and opentostudy.com. Mr. Bhatti proceeded to say that subjects of  MOOCs can be on anything. Some of the subjects offered are in the arts, the humanities, physics, and even social sciences.
Some of the gentlemen that have finished MOOCs through these websites have been Paul Wodarski, who did a course on the local pizza bomber investigation. Also, Chris Edgett did a physics course through MIT. If you would like to get started on a MOOC, it is recommended that you start on a beginning course like the ones on opentostudy.com that work on skill building. If you have any further questions on how to start a MOOC, please talk to the MOOC-master himself, Mr. Bhatti. MOOC on, everyone.