Hungry for New Knowledge? Future Learning Available Today: Free Open Online Courses

© Marta Podniece 'The Postcard'

Not a long while ago I enrolled myself in an online course about Erasmus+ Funding Opportunities for Youth, which was held on a learning platform called 'Canvas Network'. However, while completing this course the whole new world of online education winked at me and triggered to dive deeper into it and explore the enormous possibilities of online education available for today's curious learner. While looking for the online opportunities to study the subjects that have caught my interest I was directed to Erasmus+ funded portal called 'Open Education Europa' [www.openeducationeuropa.eu] that serves as a network offering information on a wide range of MOOCs [Massive Open Online Courses], courses, resources and institutions that contribute to this joint idea of making the connected and innovative way of learning possible. However, particularly a few learning platforms caught my eye by offering free online courses in various disciplines, namely FutureLearn [www.futurelearn.com] and iversity [https://iversity.org], and the previously mentioned Canvas Network [www.canvas.net].

I decided to explore and compare the options each of these learning platforms offer like what can you can study online, who is offering you the education and in what language, how the learning is done, how can you prove that you have studied and are these free online courses really FREE?  

The Biggest Fears of a Latvian News Reader regarding Refugees [2015]

©Gatis Šļūka 'A View on Europe Today'

As it became clear earlier, due to the refugee crisis the EU made a decision to find new homes for 60 000 refugees in its member states. Latvia as one of them also agreed to contribute to refugee crisis and in two years time accommodate 250 refugees. However, Latvian society has demonstrated different attitudes to this event, including readers of news portals. Weirdly enough refugees haven't come yet - but an opinion about them and who they are is already formed. More stereotypical than real. One of the causes for that might be the fact that despite a large protest against the coming of unknown, refugees are going to settle in Europe, and that it is already decided without public consent. Therefore the reaction of European society in some parts is very harsh. However, it does not change the fact that the information that is rotating around is rather prejudicial and stereotypical. In this matter, I did a small research in which I went on exploring the characteristic traits of the future refugees in Latvia based on posted comments by readers on news portal DELFI [www.delfi.lv] and came up with TOP 7 stereotypical characteristics of future refugees in Latvia. The results do not represent the opinion of the whole Latvian society, but is still a [great or minor, decide yourself] part of it. I hope these findings will serve as a tiny bit of a help to the people that will be dealing with integration issues in tomorrow's Europe. If not then it's just a sarcastic answer to all today's bloated and superficial fears about refugees that are intensely spread around in social media channels. Enjoy!

An Inspiring Journey of Learning: Bits from the Training Course 'Art for Community Development'

© Biljana Klisarova

It's been quite a while since the last time I attended one of these always inspiring events under Youth in Action program. I missed them. I missed the feeling of empowerment and being among the same-level crazy people that see solutions before problems, and give any at-the-first-glance crazy idea a healthy amount of soil to grow into a real initiative. Yes, you guessed right, I'm speaking about the brave change makers of the world that are sure the change can be made with their own bare hands (and minds). Maybe sometimes you just need a a little push, or sometimes you're the one that pushes someone if he/she is stuck in an ugly moment of stagnation. The training course 'Art for Community Development' gathered 28 young people from 8 countries, namely Czech Republic, Macedonia, Portugal, Spain, Latvia, France, Poland and Romania in a lovely small town Přerov in South-East Czech Republic to learn and discuss how art can help and is actually already helping to foster community development, develop new ideas for future cooperation and projects, and remind themselves and the rest of the world one simple truth 'JUST DO IT'!

Sunday 22nd. The Last One.

It's Sunday. I made myself awake at 6:30 AM and got ready for another regular trip to the work I'm not proud of doing, but still doing to provide some sort of sustainability for my livelihood? I find it important to be fed and have a roof above my head. And it's winter. Sleeping under the big blue sky is considered rather tragic than romantic at this period of the year. 

I take the first train from Nijmegen in direction to Roermond at 7:38 AM as usual, and expect my 15 minute ride also to go as usual. While I'm still in my sleeping mode I'm listening to cheerful and energizing music tracks and getting emotionally ready for my daily 10 km cycling activity to work. I think about the weather and whether the wind today blows with me or against me, as it greatly determines the longevity of my daily cycling trip to work. It also determines the level of my annoyance that greatly depends on whether the wind holds extras with it in form of rain or snow.

The Cellist Playing Hope

'An insight into a devastating reality of the war' or 'The hopeless, frightened and emotionally ruined in Sarajevo' could be just a few of the many phrases used for describing the plot of Steven Galloway's 'The Cellist of Sarajevo' (2008). The story evolves around the daily lives and thoughts of three characters during the recent Balkan war (the siege of Sarajevo particularly that took place from 5th April 1992 till 29th February 1996): a lady-sniper named Arrow, a young defender of the city, and two civilians, Kenan and Dragan, a former financial director and a bakery employee. Although there is around 20 years age difference between the two men, the reader can easily realize that it does not play any difference in experiencing the fear of being shot, being exposed as a target for a bullet every time crossing an intersection just to get to the other side of the river for whichever purposes, being tired, aging in no-time and asking existential questions to themselves such as how painful is to die and how does it feel when you're shot, and why some people die and some don't. It somewhat creates flashbacks to E.M. Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (1929) and makes you angry about how somebody in power has decided for the whole nation to suffer, obviously against their will. And there is the Cellist, also an ordinary man whose dreams and Sarajevo like it was before the war were also broken down like everyone else's. The Cellist plays. He plays hope. A hope for a change after witnessing one of the many daily realities of wartime Sarajevo, an event that took lives of 22 people on an ordinary wartime morning standing in a cue to get some bread... 'It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort. A target expanded in size, brought into focus by time and velocity. There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were. Then the visible world exploded...'