PLN An English teacher who continues learning and wants to be updated thanks to MOOCs

What I have been doing in the last  months is  a personal study which I carried out thanks to  COURSERA and also the platform  FUTURELEARN.(www.futurelearn.com)

Last year I could  follow an inspiring course about  literature of the  English Countryside and I must confess that  the journey was  great since  I  learnt a lot about  English writers and the study was interesting since I could see houses and nice  places in the English countryside.   In September I continued my journey and  could learn more  about  Ireland and its past history. In January I learnt more about the  British Empire thanks to the MOOC  " Empire" which was  organized by  Futurelearn.

What I liked was the idea of  presenting history and literature with  lots of  images and documents on line, the professors made the courses  lively and there was a lot of  interaction among  students in the courses, It was an international group of people like me who wanted to continue  studying on line and the courses were  free.  With  Futurelearn  you just need to pay for  a  certificate once you have done most of the activities.
Futurelearn is  a great  course  provider : in most cases you can can  download videos for the MOOC that you are doing and what's more  at the  end of each  course you are provided with web links  and lists of  interesting books you might  decide to read as a follow up.

For the  British Empire we had an interesting  blog which was  updated and as a result people could follow interesting ideas  about what had been presented in the course:

http://imperialglobalexeter.com/empire-the-controversies-of-british-imperialism/ ( this part of the  blog deals with the  main issues presented in the course )

http://imperialglobalexeter.com/  ( the blog is full of  information about  the British  Empire and  studies)

Students who worked and studied on the Mooc presented images on padlet, which  I discovered is  a web  2.0 tool that is  widely used  now  by many  educators and  in Mooc courses.

http://it.padlet.com/exetermooc/FLempire/


LEARNING  ABOUT   AUSTRALIAN  LITERATURE  - COURSERA MOOC   Spring 2015 




Right now  I am doing  the final part of another course with Coursera: it is  a " rough" study of Australian  Literature  but I have  learnt something new about this country and its people.  I am going to write about this journey into literature because   as  a Teacher of  English   I need to use any documents in English to  present a culture and also the  past history of the British Empire or the new born  nations : I learnt about the end of the Empire but  I did not know much about  the other  Literatures in English . At university I had never studied   Australian literature , I just read some short stories by   Catherine  Mansfield who was born in New Zeland.  I did a lot about  Shakespeare but almost nothing about  Australian and South African novelists or poets.   It is going to be a nice weekend spent on some  Australian  writers and poets  and I will describe later what  was interesting and  new in terms of themes and also  names. My journey has just begun!
This is an interesting link for further research on line:

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA

You might also like to  read about  poetry from Australia:

Australian poets

http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets-name

What I have studied so far has made me become more interested in these authors because I have read about  " beautiful minds", women and  men who have loved, hated their country but have described it.

D.H.Lawrence moved to Australia and  hoped to find  a place where to live and find  his ideal world. You could read this  interesting essay about   D.H. Lawrence and the  bush :

http://theconversation.com/writing-the-australian-bush-dh-lawrences-wildflowers-7185


I have  learnt  about  Patrick White  and his  great  novel VOSS:  this  is  a masterpiece of literature
which was published in 1957.

 It is the story of  Voss , a German   naturalist and  Laura but it is  based on the  past  history of  Australia. The plot is interesting and  it  describes their  relationship and  how he will  disappear.

The novel is  considered one of the most important ones  and  if you want to learn more about  it just  read this  comment  which  I found on the GUARDIAN ON LINE:
VOSS

Patrick White  got the Nobel Prize in Literature and  much has  been written about him: to learn more  just  check this weblink

http://www.complete-review.com/authors/whitep.htm

Enjoy  learning and reading more about  culture  and literature in English!