Time for Something New....

Growing up abroad my life changed drastically every 2 to 3 years. Major change was part of my life every few years. It would mean moving house, leaving friends, packing and starting all over again. In between these major moves there would be times of change too, when other families left and went back "home" or on to their next move. Life for me meant change and new things.

Now my life changes a lot less often. I have been living in the same town for quite some years now but there is still that yearning for change and for doing something new or learning something new. At the moment I am changing my day job, I will write more about that in another post. Due to the job change I have less time and energy to write on my blog. I hope I will be able to write more posts this month!

I have started doing something new and I wanted to share that with you. I am following my first MOOC! Have you heard of MOOCs or do you have experience with MOOCs? I would love to hear about it.

So what's a MOOC? Well a few months ago I had not heard of them. "A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students and professors". Wikipedia.

I am following a MOOC offered by edX.org. You can see which courses are offered by edX.org here. Interesting courses that are coming up are: Health and Society, Globilization's Winners and Losers: Challenges for Developed and Developing Countries, Solar Energy (by TU Delft, a Dutch University), and the Age of Globilization.

The MOOC I am following is Human Health and Global Environmental Change. It is taught by lecturers from the Harvard School of Public Health and I am very enthusiast about the course. Maybe I will write more about it at a later stage. The great thing is that you can watch the lectures whenever it is convenient for you. You can try to get the certificate but you do not have to.

I am still hoping to find a MOOC on third culture kids. If you come across one please let me know!

I think that MOOCs are great possibilities for global learning. All you need is:

1. A desire to learn
2. Find a topic that interests you
3. Have a computer and an internet connection
4. Find some time to watch the lectures and answer the questions etc. You can watch it in your own time zone, wherever you are on the globe.

So whether you live in Andorra or Zimbabwe there are new learning possibilities for you. Even for expats wherever you live these are new interesting opportunities. I mentioned edX but there are two other websites that offer MOOC's: Coursera and Udacity. Coursera has about 3,5 million students registered who are taking courses. More recently OpenupEd has been launched, it is a European initiative supported by the European Commission. There are about 40 courses available in 12 different languages.

Related posts:

• More information on MOOC's (USNews.com/education) 
• Bumpy Start For Pan European MOOCs (Scienceguide.nl) 
• Bilingualism and Growing up Abroad
• Nieuwe Dingen Doen
• Third Culture Kids Learning Their Mother Tongue  

Twitter update week 38: news about kids growing up globally

Sorry to have become a little slack about writing my twitter updates. I posted a comment on an interesting blog Expat with Kids. She wrote a post about third culture kids and she has several posts on this topic. She gave me a compliment for my twitter update which made me feel I must write a new update.

Autumn started today on this side of the globe

This is what I twittered about recently. I hope the links lead you to information you are looking for. By the way autumn started today on this side of the globe.

InterNationsorg Are you a third culture kid? Do you agree with the term? Read blog for some thoughts: http://bit.ly/nyqyg4

Infographic of the modern third culture kid: http://bit.ly/qyBUva via @denizenmag interesting! Home? = complicated 

Great article @denizenmag Sharing TCK experience thro' design http://bit.ly/ghJ1P6 Nice information package on TCKs international project?

6 Positive strategies to make a teenage repatriation less traumatic:
http://bit.ly/nQOWxx any advice?

Heard of the @tckbookproject? visit site http://bit.ly/c7fNcn and click on "news" to read an interview by South China Morning Post 

@heyitsjohnnyc Culture shock: 24/7 or never again? bit.ly/q5QCm4  

Social media: What parents should know ow.ly/6q5m5 important for TCKs

Post by WifeinaSuitcase English as She is Spoke* bit.ly/os4kgw Is it "rubbish" or "garbage"?

TCK @childerschristy How to Cope with Change: my top 5 tips
http://bit.ly/pWXEOy 

@mdmaurer Are you global minded? How about your kids? What are you doing about it? http://bit.ly/obMncT

Love the suggestions in this blog post! Responsible global citizenship builds bridges http://ow.ly/6tYHt 

5 things to look for in your college hunt, part of our #college guide for #TCKs: http://ow.ly/6oeuF.

@membercaremedia What kind of stressors affect our TCK kids during times of transition? dld.bz/Sqzu 

Have you heard this? 101 pianos set up in Tilburg - play me, I'm yours!! http://bit.ly/ocYRu8

Nederlandse kinderen in het #buitenland in #schooluniform: artikel bij @RNW http://bit.ly/naGGJ0 wat vindt jij ervan?

If you would like to read more twitter updates about children growing up in other cultures:

• week 34
• week 33
• week 32 (at the time of writing this is my 3rd most read post on this blog, must be interesting..)
• week 31

 Please add your news or links. It's all about children growing up in other cultures. Thanks.