Accredible Blog

Accredible lets you create a collection of Certs for your skills, areas of knowledge, interests and courses. You attach all the evidence of your abilities & work onto the Cert itself for all to see; anyone who needs convincing can simply take a look. Sign up free at accredible.com and start creating your Certs straight away!

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We’ve moved! We’re sorry we can’t migrate your comments and likes over with us, but we’re looking forward to starting and continuing new conversations on our shiny new blog. Come join us!

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5 MOOC Professors To See Before You Die

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

- William Arthur Ward

Times have changed. The new rock stars are top professors from top universities. The brave knights of 21st century fight the darkness of ignorance, earning the love of millions of students around the globe. Why? In this chaotic ocean of knowledge and amongst the great variety of learning resources, teachers are what matter the most - their talent to incite interest in students and inspire them to dive deeper.  Their charisma and support can create real magic. In this article we’ll take a look at 5 instructors you don’t want to miss.

Dan Ariely of Duke University

Habitat:  Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior by Coursera

Persona:  Jedi who fights the darkness of human irrationality.

Dan Ariely brings to you a surreal experience, a realization that everyone around you (including yourself) isn’t rational at all. Your life will never be the same again once you’ve taken this course. The fun, entertaining nature of his lectures a-la thriller, comedy, cartoon, with a superhero-like professor makes the experience truly wonderful. 

People behave irrationally, that’s a fact. You think that you are not in this category? Take this class and think again. Dan Ariely shows that obvious is usually not so obvious and the rational human being is a myth. You will learn aspects of psychology and behavioral economics such as cognitive bias, the psychology of money, neuroeconomics as well as everyday life hacks such as why “play hard to get” is a great strategy for dating, how to split the bill after the dinner at a restaurant with friends and what are the best hacks for boosting personal productivity.

Interestingly enough, Dan Ariely never had an intention of becoming a behavioral economist. Initially, he studied Physics and Math at Tel Aviv University until the last year of university when he switched to Psychology.  Although, Dan Ariely has no formal experience, he is recognized as one of the brightest minds in the field of Behavioral Economics. He has written numerous papers, bestselling books, popular articles in major business and economics newspapers and magazines and has broad teaching experience in universities such as Sloan Management School and Duke University.

Trivia: Now he’s getting magical power aka valuable information on human beings in the Center for Advanced Hindsight and sharing it with the world by writing books and giving ted talks.

Contacts: https://twitter.com/danariely

"A Preview to "A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior" can give you a precise idea what fun this class is.

    David J. Malan of Harvard 

Habitat: CS50x by edX

Persona: The Captain who guides through the rough seas of Computer Science.

David J.Malan is a Senior Lecturer of Computer Science at Harvard. However, for the majority of online students he is known for his course CS50x. Computer Science is now sexy. Many prominent entrepreneurs, business executives and journalists support the idea that everyone in 21st century should be able to code. This belief is based upon research on the future of the labor market, corroborated by the huge $500 billion gap between CS job demand and supply within the next 5 years. However, Computer Science is a difficult discipline and can be very challenging even for the most motivated self-directed learners.  

Here comes David J. Malan and CS50x.  Every “play” click will take you to a Harvard auditorium. The course is as rigorous as an actual Harvard class would be. However, you won’t even notice rigidity of the course and all the effort you’ll put into tough homework and coding. The first homework in Scratch will make even complete newbies comfortable. Singing students from previous offerings adds a lot of fun to your studies. Recommendations of documentaries and related fiction such as movies about hackers will give you some extra material to be inspired by. David Malan’s passion about his subject and faith in his students will further enhance your motivation. Why does this happen? Partially, because a professor is interested in his subject but most likely it is because apart from actually teaching he’s doing research on instructional technologies and pedagogy. This class is a great preparation for more advanced courses.

Trivia: After this class you’ll realize that there’s no wonder why Harvard students pay 200k for 4 years of education. Luckily for the world and thanks to edX, CS50X is free for everyone willing to learn.

Contacts: https://twitter.com/davidjmalan

One of the most funniest parodies on "Call Me Maybe" from Harvard CS50 students will encourage you to take this class

  Chuck Eesley of Stanford University

Habitat: Technology Entrepreneurship by NovoEd

Persona:  The Pirate-in-disguise who converts newbies into Pirates of Startup Seas.

You won't see any jaw-dropping effects in Chuck Eesley's lectures, but his modest confidence and in-depth knowledge of the subject will give you insights into starting a technology business. His course, Technology Entrepreneurship, is based on his own research at Stanford and personal experience of entrepreneurship and successful startups. The mission of professor Eesley's work is to "empower the next generation of entrepreneurs to have the greatest chance of success". What makes Chuck Eesley really special is his activity and interactions with students via the Facebook group and via Twitter. 

What about course itself? If there’s anything hotter than Computer Science nowadays, it’s startups. The buzz around the trend of starting businesses, dropping out of school, exploring new worlds and creating valuable and useful products allures thousands people of all ages, sexes and nationalities into the harsh world of business. Welcome to the Gold Rush of 21st century! 

Likely for society, creation of businesses is more meaningful and beneficial than mining gold. Because of business complexity, it requires deep knowledge and a range of skills. Books, articles and blogs can help in this case but the knowledge gained from these alone won’t be equal to what Chuck will give you - a holistic picture, deep understanding of the subject, carefully designed assignments... All the equipment for becoming a True Pirate of the startup seas!

Trivia: Indeed, Chuck Eesley is the most social MOOCs professor. You may follow him on Quora to find out his thoughts, opinons and ideas on many questions by community, from personal "What is like to be a professor at Stanford?" to more general "What are some ways to foster entrepreneurship?". He's written 80 answers and is not stopping, so lots of food for thoughts even after the class is over.

Contacts: https://twitter.com/eesley

Haven't heard about Lean Startup? That's bad, but no worries - this video will give you some useful clues

  Edward Hess of Darden School of Business(Virginia University)

Habitat: Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses by Coursera

Persona: The Wizard of Business who reveals the magic of growing successful companies.

Are you bored by academic, traditional lecture-style courses? Try this course. It couldn’t be farther away from bookish, dull lectures. You may even forget that it’s an online course - Edward Hess creates an atmosphere of conversation with an old friend. Serious researches and case studies sound rather like anecdotes from life, which engages you more and more with each lecture and makes digesting information much easier. 

If there’s only one business course you take, Grow to Greatness is a great choice because it reveals the mystery of successful businesses in just 10 weeks. Statistically, 1 out of 10 newborn companies survives. There is a widespread belief of success: find a brilliant idea, check for product/market fit, execute flawlessly, and, voila, magic happens. However, something is missing in this recipe: business nuance and actual how-to’s. Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Companies is a perfect place to find the Holy Grail.

You might say: ”I’m not so into business, why should I take this course?” If we take a closer look at the nature of business, many practices can be applied to life to help you to become a better you, to live a fulfilled life and accomplish great things. Doesn’t it sound familiar? (Hint: bestsellers on lifestyle, productivity, wealth...)

What is business about? Creating value for society, making people happy, getting things done, achieving great things despite all odds. 

Concepts such as “power of processes” will help you to organize your life and fight procrastination. “Leadership” lessons will show you how to be charismatic and confident person, bringing out the best in others and inspiring people to make great things happen. “Strategic focus” will teach you how to set the right goals and achieve them. 

Trivia: More than 30 years in business world, ex-executive of serious firms, author of 10 brilliant books... Sounds scary, huh? But instead of a haughty stereotyped Wall Street guy, you will find a likable professor-friend. Edward Hess knows how to create the right atmosphere. 

Contacts: https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~10 

Introduction for the first part of course which focuses on 4P's(Planning, Prioritization, Processes and Pacing). The second part of course is on 5th P - People.

    Salman Khan of Khan Academy

Habitat: Khan Academy

Persona: The Brave Knight who created Khan Academy, the antecedent of today’s popular MOOCs.

Every self-directed learner has at least heard of Khan Academy. The story of it’s inception is fascinating. Short educational 10-minute YouTube videos became a huge catalyst for education, with more than 260 millions views so far. Now you can find more than 3000 videos covering almost everything from deep science to liberal arts subjects alongside assignments, discussions and tracking progress tools. Moreover Khan Academy successfully applies the principles of gamification, so you’ll never be bored and always motivated to learn more.

As a result, Khan Academy has been recognized as one of the most influential educational organisations in the world.

The story behind the curtains is truly inspiring. It all started from just one person, Salman Khan, a talented, well-educated hedge fund analyst who wanted to help his cousin Nadia with her math. Tutoring went well,  and, as it always happens with great things, more people he knew wanted to get help. This was an “A-ha” moment for Salman: he created a YouTube channel to distribute more of his videos. Surprisingly for Khan, not only his friends and relatives watched his videos. Other learners and teachers all around the world also started to appreciate his effort. A few millions views in 3 years and a lot of testimonials persuaded Salman Khan to quit his job and begin Khan Academy. 

This is a true fairy tale story, with the Brave Knight spreading the light of knowledge.

Trivia: Sal Khan's vision is to provide world class education to anyone, anywhere. He writes about it in his book 'One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined'. His TED talk inspired Sebastian Thrun to quit Stanford and start his own MOOC platform Udacity.

Contacts: https://twitter.com/salkhanacademy

TED talk by Salman Khan on reinventing education

  Each month there are dozens more courses going live. New universities join the MOOC movement, bringing the best talent to the scene. Today, we’ve covered only 5 instructors, but there are many others who deserve to be in this list. Who has been the best online teacher you’ve encountered? We’d love to hear about how they inspired you.

This post is part of a series on the Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs:

0. Introduction

1. Major MOOC Platforms 

2. 5 MOOC Platforms you should know about

3. 5 MOOC Professors to See Before You Die (current post)

  Extra:

1. AwesomeCerts Contest: Win Up to $750

2. Make All Your Education Count: Redesigning CV

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Hack 7: Filling Your Skills ToolBox: How to Brainstorm

Brainstorming is a popular technique for finding solution to particular problems by generating multitude of ideas. The method was created in 1952 by Alex Faickney Osborn. You’ve probably heard that the best method to brainstorm is in group, but in this article we’re going to walk you through brainstorming for certificate on your own.

Image courtesy to Adi Respati.

Step 1. Formulate problem. Everything begins with the right question to ask. Try to stick to one specific question, not lots of them. For certificates and learning these questions might sound like:

How will I study for this course?

What techniques will I use for the course?

When will I study?

What kind of notes will I write?

What will I put onto my Cert?

Step 2. Take your time.

The main idea of brainstorming is generating ideas without assessing them. Quantity will transform into quality. Rather than finding one perfect solution for a problem, your goal is to discover as many solutions as possible. You can use the pomodoro technique for brainstorming. Set 15-25 minutes and think about the problem. Generate as many as you can ideas and write them down. No editing. No judging. No eliminating. Sometimes the most ridiculous ideas are the most insightful, original and interesting. An obvious reminder is to avoid distractions - turn off your phone and computer, since they might be detrimental to brainstorming.

Step 3. Use different approaches.

You can use the traditional method - a simple list of ideas. However, techniques from completely diverse areas may be really effective.

Mind maps are powerful way not only to organize, but also to generate ideas. You can use them at the beginning to get more ideas, using associations and branches. You can also use it after initial brainstorming to organize your ideas. You can work on one branch or jump from one to another.

Mind Map of creating study plan for Coursera's Grow to Greatness 2: Smart Growth for Private Businesses course

    The Method of 5 Why’s and How’s was originally used to identify problems and their causes. You can apply it to brainstorming, too. How does it work? Begin with a simple statement. Example:

“I need to create cert” “How?” “Using notes” “How?”  “Writing by hand” “When?”  “Right after each lecture, whilst watching the video or after one week of lectures”.

…

Questions may vary - the best are how, what, why who, when, etc. It’s very easy to reach a standstill during brainstorming. The method of 5 why’s will help you to start afresh. This method allows you to provide more concrete questions for your mind to answer. Use as many ideas and questions as you can.

Freewriting is a technique used by writers to overcome writer’s block and begin writing. According to Wikipedia, freewriting is completely different from brainstorming because  in brainstorming ideas are simply listed while in freewriting you deal with a text. However, it is indeed a fantastic technique to get your brain working. Freewriting helps you to collect ideas and thoughts on particular topic, using your associative thinking.

How does it work? Set 15 minutes and just begin writing about a course and the problems you need to solve. Don’t get distracted, ignore grammar and forget editing - just write down all of your thoughts. After the time is up, look through your notes and highlight the interesting ideas.

Rules:

1) Your goal is to create lots of ideas. Work for quantity not quality.

2) Don’t restrict yourself. Don’t eliminate some ideas because they seem ridiculous - every direction is good. Sometimes you’ll find unexpected, creative solutions in unknown territory.

3) No distractions. Brainstorming is a time when you and your ideas are meeting. Spend these 15 minutes offline.

4) Try no rules. If after 15 minutes you’re still full of ideas - don’t stop! Setting a time limit is more for you to begin working and doesn’t need to be strictly followed. If you find that mind-mapping doesn’t work for you and you’re better work with simply listing, or if you feel that freewritng helps you generate more ideas - go with it! The point is to find the most creative solutions for a particular problem.

Brainstorming is a powerful tool for discovering your inner genius. Moreover, it unlocks your creativity - a crucial skill in our modern world. In the next article, we’ll talk more about creativity.

Stay tuned!

If you have any questions, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. How do you brainstorm? What other ways for getting ideas do you use?

Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter |Google+ or in comments.

This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement

1. MOOC Certs

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs

3. Formal Learning Certs

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview

7. Filling Your Skills ToolBox: How to Brainstorm(current post)

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Using online education (MOOCs!) to address student access in California

Thanks to the 20 million minds foundation for a wonderful infographic on MOOCs and how they can address student access to education:

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Accredible #AwesomeCerts Contest Extension!

We announced the #AwesomeCerts Contest on 29th April and we are thrilled with the work and effort you put into creating truly Awesome Certs. We have decided to extend the deadline to 31st July to give you more time and opportunity to win the Contest.

Why the extension?

After talking with some of our wonderful users we felt that one month was not long enough to develop the kind of Certs you all wanted to create! Several popular MOOCs also finish later this summer and we wanted to make sure those people had a chance to participate too. 

We have also had a group of new users join our community recently and we wanted to extend the chance for them to join the fun and have the chance to win the prize money!

Accredible's AwesomeCerts Contest

So what's been happening with the contest?

We have been publishing a number of great hacks on how to win here on our blog so if you'd like some hints and ideas on creating your winning Certs, here's your guide! So far, we have 6 hacks and the list grows each week:

MOOC Certs - how to create great Certs for MOOCs courses(Coursera, edX, NovoEd)

“Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs (Udacity, Saylor, Udemy, etc)

Formal Learning Certs (high school, college courses, degrees, MBAs, Masters, PhDs)

Knowledge/Skill Certs (hobbies, conferences, seminars, readings, documentaries, etc)

How to Make the Most of Accredible?(features review and ideas on how to use them)

Skills ToolBox. Overview (announcement on Skills nice-to-have for creating great Certs)

Also, check out or series on the Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs. We are creating  a roadmap for both novices and mature learners to navigate the wonderful but complicated world of online education:

Major MOOC Platforms  - comprehensive review of major MOOCs such as Udacity, Coursera, edX. What are the differences between them? How to approach each of them? Who are the people and what is the story behind them?

5 MOOC Platforms you should know about - Review of mostly overlooked but still worth watching platforms such as NovoEd, Udemy, Open Learning, Saylor Foundation and Open Learning Initiative. What is so special about them? Why should you try them? What kind of courses and education you’ll find there?

There's also a lof of fun happening on our official facebook fan page. Some of our users (Thanks Shah Yasser Aziz, Devavrat Ravetkar and a few others!) have made us some awesome memes and have started great conversations. Thank you all for building such an awesome community!

  So to wrap up, the new contest deadline is 31st, July so start documenting your learning and show the world what you know! Why this date? Well it just so happens that this is birthday of one of the greatest wizards in the world - Harry Potter. Let’s make magic together!

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Hack 6: Skills ToolBox. Overview.

There’s an old maxim that states “there’s a tool for every job”. Creating a great Cert without some tools may be difficult and sometimes even frustrating. In the last blog posts we introduced features which enable you to make perfect certs. But it’s not enough for having fun with building your intellectual portfolio. Today we will share with you some ideas and review the skills which will be covered in future hacks to make building intellectual portfolio more fun.

Tool 1: Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a very effective technique to find multiple creative solutions for particular problems. The rules are simple: for a particular problem, you try to generate as many ideas as you can without judging or eliminating them. Then, you look at your ideas and choose the best ones.

Brainstorming is a powerful tool to get truly innovative and great ideas and solve even the most challenging problems in an original way. How to formulate questions? How to brainstorm effectively on your own? How can it help you to create awesome Certs? In one of the next blog posts, we’ll take a deeper dive into it.

Tool 2. Creativity.

Some people associate creativity with artists, poets and geniuses in general. Creativity is seen as a phenomenon, an impressive gift which ordinary people cannot possess. Others discard creativity telling that there’s no place for it in a practical world. However, creativity allows you to generate amazing projects and artifacts. There’s no mystery about it and we firmly believe that creativity can be unlocked in every person regardless of his or her age, nationality, profession or interests.

Tool 3. Planning.

Can you get from New York to Los Angeles without seeing a roadmap or any signs along the way? Can you achieve a Big Goal without seeing the steps that will lead it to you? No.

Planning is one of the most important skills in our century. It allows you to be productive, successful and stress-free. You need a roadmap to achieve any kind of goals, be it creating a winning Cert, mastering code or getting a promotion at job. Certs can help you to enhance and organize your knowledge along with planning and achieving your learning goals. We will show you how you can create study roadmaps using Accredible.

Tool 4. Kindergarten Method.

Do you remember being a kid? Life was full of wonders, dreams, and new discoveries. Kids are fearless, inquisitive and fast learners. Unfortunately, children grow up and we, adults, forget many useful techniques, unique mentality and childish attitude which could be of a great help today, in the grown-up world. This tool is about recalling this sunny and careless period and learning to do many great things again. It’s about giving you a new pair of wings to fly.

Tool 5. Friends.

People are important in life. Friends and peers are crucial for learning. We learn not from books - we learn from other people. Most online courses are great not because of knowledge - information has been there before MOOCs. They are valuable because they gathera multitude of students with different background but similar interests in one place to share ideas and help each other. That’s why learning via MOOCs is so popular now and much more effective than before. However, peer-to-peer learning is not the only way to use society to learn in a better way.

Today we have shown you 5 important skills that will help you not only create a winning cert, but also to succeed in your learning in general. In the next 5 hacks we’ll take a closer look at each of them. Stay tuned!

If you have any question, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. What do you think - what skills are the most important for self-learner? What are your personal hacks to succeed?

Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter | Google+ or in comments.

  This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement

1. MOOC Certs

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs

3. Formal Learning Certs

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs 

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview(current post)

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Hack 5: How to Make the Most of Accredible?

In the last few blog posts we gave you some insights about general creation of Certs. Today we’ll show you how you can use all the features of Accredible to make truly Awesome Certs.

  Step 1. Organize.

Like a book begins with a prologue, your Cert begins with a Summary. We’ve already talked a lot about it but it’s crucial for reviewers of your Cert to see the right Summary. First of all, they should cover the most important points of your learning experience. Secondly, your Summary should be readable - people will appreciate your work more if the summary is pithy and clean. Try to include only the most relevant information and to use bullet points for dividing the knowledge/learning.

Work. One of the most useful features for organizing the work is the ability to move position. Put the most important, like Statement of Accomplishment or Diploma, at the top. If some documents are important, but you cannot place them in the top you can use either - change the size or highlight them.

Keep the similar docs together(like homeworks in one place, quizzes in another, your reflections and essays in a third, etc). The alternative is to use labels for particular types of work. Earlier you could use only defaults such as “course work”, “notes”, “grades”, “extra work”. Now Certs have evolved and you can edit labels which makes your Certs more flexible and personalized.

  Step 2. Beautify.

For making  beautiful Certs you can use the following ideas:

Position work wisely. Put one size docs on a row, larger size pictures or mind maps on another row. Highlight the most interesting and beautiful pieces of your Cert and place them in a particular pattern. When you are polishing your cert, remember that people like symmetry.

Edit the image of Cert. For formal and informal learning we introduced all the MOOC platforms and most universities. But what if you do a Cert for a skill you’ve learned but there aren’t any images in the library? Don’t worry, you can upload your own image which will make your cert more creative and personal.

Beautifying Certs- have fun! Don’t stick to one course of action or take beautifying as a requirement. Just play around with your docs, change the sizes of pictures, move positions, try different images. Some people already submitted Certs that impress us with a beautiful overall appearance.

  Step 3. Make it Accredible.

Some people believe that it’s impossible to achieve perfection. We believe that everyone can do their best and be exemplary. When you have uploaded all your notes, homework and statements, the only last piece that separates you from perfection (exemplary cert) are endorsements. Share your achievements with colleagues via Linkedin, with family via email, with friends via Facebook or with the whole community (including the Accredible community) via Twitter.Show what you’re worth. You’re more than numbers or obscure lines in CVs and this is your chance to prove it.

Moreover, you can talk  about what you know. It’s better one time to see, than one hundred times to hear. Grab your webcam and shoot a video of you explaining different concepts from your Cert. Or tell people about your work experience. Or what you learned beyond official syllabuses. That will sound persuasive.

  Your Cert is a piece of you, which shows your intellectual identity. Also, it’s your chance to save what’s really important to remember. We live in a century when overabundance of information makes people to forget significant things. Accredible is your personal wiki which allows you to remember everything that matters. In the next few hacks we’ll open you a ToolBox of skills that will help you to be in shape, unlock creativity, plan wisely and play with work.

If you have any question, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. What features do you like the most? What would you love to have? What are you struggles connected to self-learning?

Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter | Google+ or in comments.

  This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement

1. MOOC Certs

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs

3. Formal Learning Certs

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs 

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?(current post)

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview

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Hack 4: How to Create Winning Knowledge/Skill Cert?

In the previous blog posts we explored three types of Certs: MOOCs, Formal Learning and Self-paced learning Certs. You may find some similarities between them. Knowledge/Skill Certs are totally different from any of those. Because you are not given any kind of instructions, you can do this Cert  for everything: books, skills or even hobbies. Every type of learning should count, and this Cert is your chance to show who you are behind the traditional courses and ubiquitous lines of your CV. Moreover Knowledge/Skills Certs helps you to save all the learning you’ve ever done.

  How to work with  Knowledge/Skills Certs?

First of all, you need to decide what the Cert will be about. The content of the Cert will mainly depend on the topic. The hobby Cert will be completely different from the skill Cert. Without clearly defined goals, working further on your Cert will be very hard.

Secondly, the Cert summary might baffle you. “What should I write in it, if I haven’t had any syllabuses or other hints?”. Don’t worry. Think about what you want to save and show the world. Most obvious solutions are not the best in this case. If it’s book learning you want to save, the table of contents won’t tell other people anything about your Cert. However, brief notes of the work you’ve done, skills you mastered or essays you’ve written will show much more.

We advise you to work on your Cert summary twice. The first time is when you are just start creating your Cert, since it’s a great way to think about what you can put into it, kind of like sketching a roadmap. The second time is when you’ve already put all of the materials into your Cert for your summary; be more complete and relevant, which will also give you more ideas on what you will work on further.

Thirdly, use different kinds of tools to help you. Here we list just a few things that may do it:

Mind maps for organizing thoughts and ideas.

Infographics for remembering data and visualization of information.

Docs on motivation and reasons for creating this cert. Why is it important for you? Why did you decide to master this skill?

Plan for further development. Learning is never over and a roadmap might be very helpful for you to not be too distracted.

Presentations and videos.

You can put any kind of projects and essays into your Cert. The more methods you use, the more valuable your Cert is for both, you and community.

Pro tip 1.

Since learning is never over, your Cert may grow from just one skill to another. Try not to follow the plan too strictly. Sometimes you may get new ideas for your Cert - do not hesitate to change the direction. Learning is an unpredictable journey full of adventures and surprises. You should be flexible to get the most of it.

Pro Tip 2.

You can save not only knowledge and learning into your Cert, but also experience. Are you fan of Russian Literature and going to visit Moscow next month? Put into your Cert the personal reviews and photos of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Museum and travel notes on Russian Culture as a whole. Or maybe you’re learning Chinese cuisine - why not to insert pictures of your own Chinese cooking into it? Do not restrict yourself only to bookish knowledge, use every kind of learning, experience included, to show your expertise, enthusiasm about topic and proactivity.

  It’s the last post of our sub-series on Creating Winning Certs (have you submitted yours to our AwesomeCerts Contest?). In the next sub-series we’ll explore the ToolBox of Skills that will help you to fight procrastination, unlock your full potential, and come up with great ideas. You’ll learn how to use Accredible to the fullest and make your Certs better.

Stay tuned!

  If you have any question, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. What skills do you want to master? How do you plan not instructed self-learning? What are your personal hacks to turn your life into School?  Share it with us and Accredible community on Facebook | Twitter | Google+ or in comments.

  This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement

1. MOOC Certs

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs

3. Formal Learning Certs

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs (current post)

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview

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Hack #3. How to Create A Winning Formal Learning Cert?

In the last blog post of this series we covered self-paced learning Certs. Now, it’s time to talk about more conservative yet interesting and useful types of Certs - formal learning (college courses and degrees, high school projects and curricular).

Although there are a lot of heated discussions on broken educational systems around the world, at Accredible we believe that formal learning shouldn’t be underestimated. Schools and colleges are still powerful social institutions to gain structured, organized and useful knowledge. But people are more than grades and signed papers - now all their projects, works and knowledge may be stored and shared with the world.

What to put into Formal Learning Cert?

First of all, official grades and syllabuses for people to see what the cert, course or degree is about. Grades still matter and you shouldn’t omit them. However, it’s not of the biggest importance for you cert.

Secondly, show what is behind your grade. You got “A” for particular paper? Upload this paper - show that you did great work and put in a lot of effort to achieve this grade. Your quiz grade may not have been as good as you wanted it to be for some personal reasons but you know that you put a lot of work, wrote beautiful notes but the assessment just didn’t work out for you.the Cheer yourself up by uploading all the work you did for the quiz and show the world that you deserve a better grade.

Thirdly, any kind of projects are welcome. It might be a extra project which you did not do for any particular grade but simply out of curiosity. It might be your reflections on the course or any topic which wasn’t counted at school or college. It might be mind maps or infographics for you to better understand topics. It might be summary of a required reading and your thoughts and ideas on it. Literally, you can put everything there!

Pro tip: Create a complete degree/curricular with all the work you’ve done.

Create multiple certs for each course and one cert for your degree. Insert the certs for courses into this degree cert. This way, your degree will be more organized and contain much more information which will give more credibility to your Cert.

You can even win $150 Amazon voucher for your learning. So don’t forget to enter your formal learning certs to Accredible's AwesomeCerts contest: https://www.accredible.com/contest

The next hack will be for the most difficult but very interesting cert category - knowledge/skill. Don’t miss it!

This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement

1. MOOC Certs

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs

3. Formal Learning Certs (current post)

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs 

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview

What were the most interesting courses during your academic experience? What were you struggles? How did you overcome them?

[accredible]

Hack #2: How to Create Winning Self-Paced Learning Cert?

Accredible #AwesomeCert contest is running and we're posting the series of hacks that will help you to win it. In the last blog post we gave you some insights into creating MOOCs Certs. Today we are going to walk you through one of the most difficult paths: self-paced learning by such MOOCs as Saylor, Udemy, Treehouse and others.

Some self-paced learning platforms - YouTube, Saylor, Khan Academy, MIT Open Courseware,  iTunes U, P2PU, Udemy, Treehouse, Codecademy

With more freedom, people gain more responsibilities. Deadlines are an effective cure to procrastination, but they are absent in the self-paced learning. Hence you need more motivation and discipline to succeed there. Still, there are many benefits in self-paced learning. In this blog post, you’ll find out how you can use it to your advantage.

Before we can begin, make sure you are signed in. Then you can create a new cert or open an existing cert.

How to work with the Cert?

First of all, as for MOOCs and any other type of Certs, official syllabuses are very important - so, don’t skip this step. If syllabuses are not stated, think about what and how you’ll learn and write down your own syllabuses.

Second, planning for self-paced courses is more important than for traditional ones or MOOCs since your success depends on your discipline and organization. You should know exactly what you want to achieve and by what time. When you have infinite amount of time for completion and unlimited sources of information to enhance your knowledge, you can be very easily distracted and spend much more time than you wanted. One of the ways to motivate yourself to follow your plan is to state your plans in a public document and add it to your public Cert from the beginning.

Third, you have more freedom and more time studying self-paced courses. You can put more effort and creativity into creating extra work. This will make your Cert truly innovative and beautiful and enhance its credibility. Still, be sure that you planned your work thoroughly because it’s very easy to get lost in oceans of available information.

  Pro Tip 1

Accredible Cert can be very useful for you in terms of planning. Before beginning to study the subject, create a doc with detailed plan on what and when you’ll cover. Publish it in your Cert to commit yourself to this plan. The format of document may be in any way you like! You can use tabs, checkpoints, to-do’s bullets for things you want to study.

Alternatively, you can create a public Trello board to plan and schedule your course work and add it to the Accredible Cert.  This way you don’t have to worry about forgotten personal deadlines.

  Pro Tip 2

Whenever you write some notes or take a quiz, add them to the Cert and go ahead with the learning. You could also record videos of yourself explaining what you learnt in a given unit. This way you won’t worry about lost knowledge. These archived artifacts are immensely helpful in revising too!

Danny King, CEO of Accredible, explains Gamification concepts (see it on his Gamification cert)

You can even win $150 Amazon voucher for your learning. So don't forget to enter your self-paced learning certs to our AwesomeCerts contest: https://www.accredible.com/contest

We’ve explored hacks for creating MOOC certificates earlier and self-paced learning certs today. The next blog post will be tips for creating Accredible certificates for traditional learning. Stay tuned!

This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement

1. MOOC Certs

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs (current post)

3. Formal Learning Certs

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs 

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview

If you have any question, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop a line to [email protected]. What are your thoughts on planning beforehand the learning? How do you do it? Have you submitted your AwesomeCert to contest?

[accredible]

Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs: 5 MOOC Platforms You Should Know About

In the last post we covered the most popular MOOC platforms: Coursera, Udacity and edX. However, there are many other places which can help you enrich your knowledge. These are the MOOC platforms you’ll find out about today.

  NovoEd

Started as a Stanford MOOCs experiment (Stanford Venture Lab), NovoEd now is an independent MOOC platform, currently offering 9 classes. Unlike the courses from many other platforms, NovoEd courses are about more than just reading, watching videos and taking quizzes. Their emphasis is on collaboration and learning by doing.

The most famous courses, Crash Course on Creativity and Technology Entrepreneurship at NovoEd.

In the class Technology Entrepreneurship, for example, you need to find a team with which you will create a marketing plan, first prototypes, and even start your own startup. Assignments are unique since you are getting practical knowledge and developing new skills instead of simply remembering facts and recalling concepts.

Many NovoEd professors,- such as Chuck Eesley of TechEntr - are fantastic at keeping in touch via social media, watching and participating in discussions via Facebook and Twitter. Whilst students are discouraged from contacting them directly, most professors seem happy to participate in discussions.

  Open Learning

Although Open Learning is a relatively new edtech startup from Australia (founded by Adam Brimo and Richard Buckland), it is already a very promising place for studying. Courses are created by professionals and teachers. Freedom of expression and a rich library of available tools allow them to make a unique experience for students.

The most popular courses started recently in OpenLearning.

  Students have opportunities to engage with learning and the community in new ways: tracking progress, earning badges and blogging about your thoughts, ideas and experiences helps to enrich your learning experience. Getting lost is impossible because course structure, profiles,and notifications are easy to learn and use.

Since Open Learning is a new platform, there are only a few courses on offer. However, the courses are very diverse in terms of time to complete (for example, Entrepreneurship by Taylor’s University takes 17 weeks whilst Service Marketing - The Next Level only takes 3 weeks). Content also varies heavily,from the ubiquitous Web Design and Development to the unique Observing and Analysing Performance in Sport. In our list of MOOCs, Open Learning is the youngest platform. However, as it introduces new ways of teaching, studying and is evolving quickly, so might stumble upon a fascinating adventure whilst exploring it. 

  Saylor Foundation 

The Saylor Foundation has a long history. It was established in 1999 by the prominent entrepreneur, founder and CEO of BI company MicroStrategy Michael J. Saylor and in 2008 switched focus to providing free, open, university-like classes for people around the world.

Saylor University's Areas of Study.

  Currently, you can find more than 200 different courses on saylor.org. There are two key features that really make Saylor stand out: lots of courses on Humanities and Business and the level of courses are higher and more college-like. All courses are self-paced but a time-advisory system helps you to plan your studies. Moreover, after completion you can go to a testing center and get credits for most of their courses.

Saylor Foundation is a great platform if you want to study at your own pace, seek knowledge at a higher-than-introductory level and have good organizational skills.

Hint for high school students: you can find a helpful course, SAT prep, on Saylor.

  Udemy

In 2010, the Udemy learning platform was launched by Eren Ball, Oktay Calgar, and Gagan Biyany. Its slogan “The Academy of You” perfectly describes Udemy’s philosophy and its courses: everyone can create a course for others to learn from. Due to this, the courses are very diverse: from Organic Chemistry to Makeup Techniques and Applications. Moreover, most of the courses on Udemy are unique and don’t fit traditional academic characteristics. Where else on the web can you find such courses as How to Train Puppy?, Learn How to Juggle or Adapting Novel to Screenplay?

Featured and new courses worth taking a look in Udemy.

  All courses are self-paced but most of them are not free. However, prices vary and if you find a course unsatisfactory, you can always request a refund during first 30 days without providing any explanation. Don’t have time or money to take course right now? No worries, Udemy has a Wishlist feature that allows you to save and try the course later.

Udemy is transforming education by making it peer-to-peer and going beyond traditional academic subjects.

Open Learning Initiative

The Open Learning Initiative was started in 2001 as a grant-funded project by the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University. Since then, 6 charity organizations, including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have supported them. What makes this platform unique is the integration of Carnegie Mellon’s expertise in cognitive tutoring into online courses. The idea of Metacognition (“Thinking about thinking”) helps people to study effectively.

Example of Learn by Doing at Open Learning Initiative.

Although the course database is not yet very large, existing courses involve more than just reading or watching content. Student activities such as “Learn by Doing” and “Did I get this?” as well as great course feedback will help you study more effectively and have fun along the way. Moreover, many traditional universities and some MOOCs (Introduction to Psychology as a Science by GeorgiaTech for example) decided to use the OLI as supportive material to enrich student’s experience and create higher engagement.

  Today we’ve walked you through five promising MOOCs worth watching and trying. Still, there are many more places that can turn your laptop or mobile into a living university. Don’t stop searching for cool online universities - this journey is fun and brings many new experiences, knowledge and friends.

  This post is part of a series on the Beginner's Guide to MOOCs:

0. Introduction

1. Major MOOC Platforms

2. 5 MOOC Platforms you should know about (current post)

3. 5 MOOC Professors to See Before You Die

  Extra:

1. AwesomeCerts Contest: Win Up to $750

2. Make All Your Education Count: Redesigning CV

  Want to share your experience and the places we didn’t cover? Comment or send us email at [email protected] We’ll be happy to hear from you and cover new MOOCs or anything else you want in our next articles.

[accredible]

Hack 1: How to Create a Winning MOOC Cert?

As we promised in our earlier announcement, we begin a series of short tips on creating winning certs for our contest. The first topic we’ll explore is MOOC certificates. Most of MOOCs offer a certificate upon successful completion of the course, but all the knowledge, all of your work is gone or spread out after the class is over. Creation of an Accredible cert helps you to save this work and show it later to your friends and potential employers.

What to put on a cert?

First of all, pay attention to syllabuses. In most courses’ information pages the syllabuses are long and obscure. For people viewing your Cert, you don’t want all of this detail. He or she wants concise and specific syllabuses which will cover all the areas of knowledge and all the skills you gained during the course. In one of next hacks, we will explore how to create such a syllabus in more detail.

Secondly, your work from the course should be present: assignments, notes and even screenshots of your grades.

Thirdly, think outside the box. How about:

extra work. Decide to dig deeper and write a short research paper on topic X? Awesome! That will enhance your cert credibility and show that you’re a proactive learner.

mind maps on notes. Don’t like long written notes but enjoy structured knowledge? Mind maps are one of the best ways to show that you worked with class material and understood it well.

forum discussions posts. You were an active student and discussed your ideas with peers? That’s fantastic! Copy all your posts to a document or screenshot them and insert it onto your cert. This way people can see that you’re a good collaborator and an articulate thinker.

Pro tip:

If you need additional motivation to complete course X, or more organized knowledge and better planning, create a private cert with all the course and extra work you’re going to do before starting the course . This way you’re killing 3 birds (yes, 3!) with one stone:

You know what to do and when you will do it. Many students drop out of courses due to poor planning.

You’ve already put in some effort on the course by creating a cert - the more work you put into a particular course, the harder it becomes for you to drop out.

During the course, you will be motivated to work much more since not only are you able to see your cert after the class is over, but also friends, potential employers and the general public. Thus, you will gain more knowledge and skills during the course.

With each Hack we'll include an example Cert to help you visualize what we're talking about. Danny's Cert for his Coursera Gamification course is a great example. Pay specific attention to his syllabus as an example of providing a great outline whilst being relatively concise: https://www.accredible.com/3 

We hope this brief blog post on MOOCs cert will help you to create better certs. In our next blog post we’ll explore the creation of certs for the self-paced learning category. 

This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement

1. MOOC Certs (current post)

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs

3. Formal Learning Certs

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs 

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview

  If you have any questions, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or drop an email to [email protected].

Happy creating!

[accredible]

Accredible’s #AwesomeCerts Contest

  “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” - Benjamin Franklin

At Accredible, we believe that all kinds of education matter, whether it’s courses in traditional universities, certificates from MOOC classes or even reading books. We want to help you to learn, to show the world what you know. We are pleased to announce our #AwesomeCerts contest where you can show your learning by creating cool Certs, save and organize your knowledge, and even get prizes from us - vouchers for Amazon.

MOOC learning (Coursera, edX, Udacity, NovoEd, OpenLearning, Open2Study, etc.)

Formal Learning (a course or degree from a school, college, university, etc.)

Skill/Knowledge (a body of learning beyond a single course)

Saylor category for self-paced learning (Via Udemy, Saylor, Khan Academy, P2PU, Codeacademy, Treehouse, itunes U, YouTube, MIT Open Courseware, etc.)

Most innovative Cert (Who can be the most creative with how they demonstrate their learning, skills & knowledge?)

Why give you money for creating awesome Certs?

Motivation. We want you to challenge yourself, to explore new boundaries and discover new horizons. We want you to learn.

Help you to create your intellectual portfolio. Today employers and colleges want to see your knowledge, skills and talent. Your intellectual portfolio is the first step in standing out and demonstrating what you can do. Be the first, be creative and be credible.

Show you’re more than just a grade. We embrace your creativity, talents and aspirations, providing the place for you to show who you are. 

Today, on the 29th April, 2013 we are launching our #AwesomeCerts contest. The rules are simple: you create a Cert and submit it into one of 4 categories. The most creative, inspiring and beautiful certificates will receive prizes and the chance to be on the first page in the history of digital education. Start building your cert now!

We want you to win. Every week we will post tips on how to create winning certs, where to find ideas and how to make your portfolio more effective.

The contest closes on 31st May 31st July (read about the deadline extension here) but remember, the contest isn't about winning, it’s about your learning. As the talented coach and executive Vince Lombardi once said: “Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is”. Try your best, be yourself and enter the contest. Start building your cert now!

To submit your Cert and find the rules, go here: https://www.accredible.com/contest

Help about Accredible certs: Getting Started with Accredible Certs What all can be added to a Cert

This post is part of a series on the Hacks to Create Winning Certs:

0. Contest Announcement (current post)

1. MOOC Certs

2. “Saylor category for self-paced learning” Certs

3. Formal Learning Certs

4. Knowledge/Skill Certs 

5. How to Make the Most of Accredible?

6. Skills ToolBox. Overview

If you have any questions, ideas or feedback, feel free to comment or send us a line at [email protected]

[accredible]

Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs: 1. Major MOOC Platforms

 At Accredible, we are passionate about learning. In this article we walk you through the three largest MOOC platforms today: Coursera, Udacity and edX. How are they different? What kind of courses do they offer? What platform will suit you the best? We'll give you the knowledge to choose when and how to study from each, based on your own interests and learning styles.

So, what is a MOOC? The term has been around the web for a couple of years and Wikipedia gives the following definition:

A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aiming 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, professors, and TAs. MOOCs are a recent development in distance education.

Coursera

Founded a year ago, by Stanford Computer Science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Coursera is the most popular MOOC platform today. More than 3 million students take classes on diverse topics offered by 62 universities from various countries. 

What makes Coursera unique is the wide range of subjects they cover. You can take courses in Arts, Economics, Life Sciences, Law, Computer Science, Chemistry and many more, all taught by leading educators throughout the world. This great variety gives you incredible flexibility to explore as many topics as interest you, no matter how diverse your interests are.

Each course runs on a fixed schedule so you'll have to ensure that you have enough free time to study the courses that you want, but if you miss a particular course or there are too many that clash you can simply study them the next time the re-open. Some courses also offer archives and self-paced schedules 

Coursera does not produce the courses on their platform themselves, but rather allows universities to create them under a set of guidelines and a common structure, generally consisting of weekly short video lectures, content quizzes and assignments and also including a midterm and final exam but this varies between courses. Some have only quizzes and videos whilst others have only a final exam. Also, computing courses generally have automated coding assignments while humanities courses usually use peer-reviewed essay assignments. The final decisions on teaching style, course content and grading rubrics are made by the individual universities and so quality and style can vary between courses.

Most courses offer free completion certificates (although not all) and some are eligible for Coursera's Signature Track, which for a fee can give you an enhanced certificate for which Coursera verifies your identity.

Udacity

Udacity is another Stanford-born MOOC platform and was founded by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens and Mike Sokolsky in February 2012. Unlike Coursera, the emphasis was mainly on Computer Science but they have since expanded to include Mathematics, Physics, Business and Psychology courses to its catalog.

Unlike Coursera, Udacity courses are all self-paced; you can study as much or as little as you like each week. This can be very valuable for students that have less flexible schedules or less free time. Of course, this also requires stronger motivation and organizational skills to complete the courses without Coursera's looming deadlines - which many students find useful. However, many students have found great ways to overcome these challenges and we'll be sharing these secrets with you in another article in this series!

 Also unlike Coursera, which has many introductory courses, Udacity courses are divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Each course also has requirements and follow-up courses, making it easy to plan a more structured, “degree-like” curriculum.

Udacity create all of their courses themselves and they follow their own unique pedagogy style with strict quality control. The team of instructors, teaching assistants and video editors work closely together to create courses that are well designed and highly polished.

edX

Founded in 2012 by MIT and Harvard, edX is the East Coast answer to Stanford-initiated startups. Initially, edX offered Engineering, Computer Science and Science courses but they now offer courses on Humanities and Liberal Arts too. Many other universities have now joined non-profit initiative: Berkeley, The University of Texas System, McGill Australian National University, Wellesley, Georgetown university, University of Toronto, Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, Tu Delft and Rice.

The nature of edX courses is much more similar to offline college courses than with the other platforms but there is a feeling of great polish and quality for each one, especially with their Computer Science assignments which are very in-depth and interactive. Unlike Udacity, courses are not self-paced and unlike Coursera, the courses usually last between 10-12 weeks as opposed to Coursera's shorter 5-8 week average.

You may find edX courses more challenging than courses of other platforms because edX's courses are much more rigorous than Coursera’s and less tolerant in terms of deadlines than Udacity's. However, the studying process is organized in the way most convenient to the student. It’s consistent: once you learn how to use edX, you won’t have to change your studying approaches and habits due to the new regulations or policies.

Looking ahead

MOOCs are a young phenomenon and they are still evolving dramatically. So which platform should you choose? Each platform has its own unique style, pros and cons and many students prefer to study on several platforms simultaneously.  Each will enhance your knowledge and help you to develop skills in expertise at the amazing price of $0. If you want to diversify your knowledge, browsing Coursera's huge breath of subjects is a great place to start. If you are more interested in gaining a deeper understanding of a subject, then Udacity and edX are excellent options for when you want to advance beyond introductory courses.

In our next article in this series we will explore other less well-known but equally valuable MOOC platforms.

This post is part of a series on the Beginner's Guide to MOOCs:

0. Introduction

1. Major MOOC Platforms (current post)

2. 5 MOOC Platforms you should know about

3. 5 MOOC Professors to See Before You Die

  Extra:

1. AwesomeCerts Contest: Win Up to $750

2. Make All Your Education Count: Redesigning CV

  What do you think of the 'big three?' Do you have a favorite? Let us know in the comments! If you have any ideas, questions or suggestions for future articles send us a note at [email protected] - we'll respond to every one!

Happy learning!

[accredible]

Beginner’s Guide to MOOCs: 0. Introduction

  “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

― Plutarch

  Experts believe that the two most essential needs of a learner are:

Freedom to explore and express ideas

Access to resources that aid in getting answers to their questions

Perhaps this is why massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been a catalyst for discussion and created a huge buzz. For the first time people have the opportunity to learn whatever they want from the best professors in the world, for free. 2012 will always be remembered as the year of the MOOC. Now we all have the ability to enhance our CVs, gain new skills and broaden our minds if we’re willing to join the adventure. Missing this opportunity is a huge mistake.

But the world of MOOCs can be complex and unfriendly for the new adventurer. What is a MOOC platform? What are the differences between various MOOC platforms, such as NovoEd and Coursera? Where can I gain particular skills which will suit me the best? How can I choose between two courses with similar material? How can I study effectively, succeeding in my studies whilst balancing my real-world responsibilities? Finding the answers to these questions can be frustrating and time consuming, ultimately detracting from what you’re trying to learn. Why not learn from the experience of others?

Accredible is happy to announce the series of articles which will help to make your educational journey easier and more enjoyable. We will guide you through the maze of platforms and courses, giving you roadmap to make the most of your studies.

The disruption happening in education is opening access like never before. Everybody now has the opportunity to educate themselves, regardless of their socio-economic background or geographic location. An internet connection, proper motivation and a little time are the only things needed to wield the awesome power of knowledge.

So, enjoy the ride whilst we take you on a journey through the education revolution. Let us know what you want us to explore, what problems you’ve encountered and stay tuned for the next post.

This post is part of a series on the Beginner's Guide to MOOCs:

0. Introduction (current post)

1. Major MOOC Platforms 

2. 5 MOOC Platforms you should know about

3. 5 MOOC Professors to See Before You Die

[accredible]

Make All Your Education Count: Redesigning CV

With all the amazing innovations and developments within academia and edtech at the moment, one content area that seems to have been left behind a little is the common CV.

Education has evolved dramatically over the last fifty years yet things like CVs and certificates haven't changed for hundreds of years. They are (at best) shiny pieces of paper with a name, grade and institution printed on them. 

CVs tend to contain very pigeon-hole style of content such as 'education', 'work' and 'interests' which ultimately only create a very low resolution image of a person and one that is liable to deception. 

For example, if you get a B in Computer Science does that mean you were generally 'average', or are you an exceptional programmer with a weakness in some other part of the syllabus that isn't relevant to the job at hand? 

Here at Accredible, we've been working hard to improve the way that credentials and certificates are generated across MOOCs, university courses also as wider learning by using peer-review and  reputational networks to determine and maintain quality. 

By re-imagining the idea of the certificate to be more than just a statement, we can create a living portfolio of evidence that shows you have certain knowledge or skills. You can also get a much 'higher resolution' image of who a student is, what they can do and a list of evidence proving that.

And this is where we feel there's a parallel between our work on credentials and CVs: rather than simply listing your achievements, we feel that you should be able to provide evidence to back up your claims, be they across your education, work or skills.

Below is an example of one of our MOOC Certs giving examples about how this approach could be similarly used to demonstrate your personal capabilities on a CV:

Unlike your traditional certificate or CV, you can create as many Certs as you like, each with a different course or program you studied to help build up a more rounded vision of your education.

Of course there's also a direct benefit to your prospective employer as well as it gives them a much better chance to understand who you really are and why you really are perfect for their role. With greater transparency, comes better hiring decisions and a much lower risk of hiring the wrong candidate!

We'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the future of CVs and how developments in the EdTech space are changing the way we list our achievements. Is there still a place for CVs and if so in what sort of context? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Do you want brand-new CV of 21st century? Sign up at https://www.accredible.com 

Need inspiration or don't know where to begin? Here's some amazing certs to help you. https://www.accredible.com/gallery