Weekly Autonomous Work

So every week you have to do at least 90 minutes autonomous work. For the first few weeks I'd like to try what I did with last year's M2 - it worked very well in many cases but not very well in a few.

Here are the links to some free online courses in English.

Future learn
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses?filter_category=8&filter_availability=started&all_courses=1

OU Free Courses
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full-catalogue

I want you to look through what is on offer. There are different levels (introductory to advanced) which relate to the subject - not to the English level and they state the number of hours involved - mulitply the weeks by the hours per week. Obviously these times are only guidelines and as the courses are online you can do as much as you want at any time - all in one day if you so desired Laughing .

There are many courses linked to Business and Management but if you want to do a History or Arts course then go ahead, you can choose any course except a foreign language course. My aim is to have you study an English course - aimed at native English speakers - of your choice. Hopefully you'll learn something of interest and more importantly, from my point of view, you'll have to work and think in English in a "Real" academic situation.

At the end of each week I want you to create a new thread here and share an idea that you learned with the group and engage them in conversation. Of course you must also read what some of the others have studied and give your views on any question they ask or statement they make. If you find your chosen course uninteresting you can stop it and choose another one.

Have fun.

My subject is Children and young people : food and food marketing
Why did I choose this subject ?

I have choose this subject because i would like to improve my vocabulary in marketing orientate on the child target and finally because I like also the food such as said in the last publication.

I learned lot of things:

The first, the food marketing influences children’s food preferences and their eating, the UK has introduced rules that try to reduce marketing of junk foods to children and young people. However it's complicated to regulation of unhealthy food promotion in digital media such on the social media (you tube...)

Secondly, the works of marketer about the junk food for is resum in 5 things on the target childrens :
- their online searches
- their location
- sentiment analysis
- social media (hashtags, games, tweets)
- big picture (mix everything from location, to profile, to friends and feelings...)
I find it's really reduce the job of marketers and isn't not really my point of view.
Of more, companies of marketing said that teens target isn't a problem because they understand that it's advertising. However, the World Health Organization it's not agree with that and me too.

Third, the association in the UK try to be fight against the obesite with the reglementation such as In April 2018 the UK government brought in a sugar tax which meant manufacturers had to pay a levy on fizzy drinks with a high sugar level. One frequent response to sugar taxes by companies is to reduce sugar by adding artificial sweeteners to food and drinks. It's not had real solution.
My opinion I think it's a work collaborative between companies and society. If the beahavior of consumer change the problem don't existe anymore. And it's the even with the companies.

I hope this publication it's not too big. It's a subject interesting but I think changing for the next week.

Thanks.

Ahah Clothilde and food a great love story!
I never thought that UK was touch by obesity problem, finally it concerns all countries.


Concerning this autonomous work, i decided to choose a course call Marketing in the 21st century. I choose this subject because when i read the course content i saw that it was about marketing concept (as we already know them) but mainly because it was approaching interntaional marketing and the role of ethics in marketing. This last, is a point that interrest me particularly because moral issues are more and more present nowadays.  

The course begins with an introduction with the definition of marketing which is very vague and each person has established its own definition. This definition of each is illustrated by a cartoon, quiet funny, representing the aspects of what marketing is, as the 7 deadly sins (see below)



The rest of the course is a reminder of the points we had already seen in marketing so i'm not going to repeat that, it was interesting for some vocabulary. I'm waiting to get to the "marketing and ethics" part, that should catch more my attention, I hope.
Otherwise I will change my course subject too.

Thanks for reading,
Bye!

The course I choose to start this Autonomous Work is Marketing Analytics - University of Virginia.

This is my first choice and the main reason I would like to do this course is that the subject is deeply connected with what I do so I can update my knowledge and in the same time practice and improve my vocabulary in this field.

I haven't started it yet because this course has date and time to start (tomorrow) so this can be a something that won't work for me, once the time zone in France is different from the USA. So, if the time is not flexible, I'll try my second option which is the same that Caroline has chosen.

Here are some topics we'll discover in this course:

- The marketing process
- Metrics for measuring brand assets
- Customer lifetime value
- Marketing experiments
- Regression basics

If you are interested in this subject, here is the link you can access:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/uva-darden-marketing-analytics

Have a great week!

Eli

Hello everyone, I’m going to talk about my autonomous work. I choose a boring subject. I know it’s sunday and this subject it’s perfect for this bad day. Bad day because it’s just before the new week and just before to finish our personal work on mini dol. Enjoy your life and please keep reading.

My subject is about children’s rights. It’s completely consistent with our studies but this lesson is not fun and dynamic. I would like a lesson more educational and recreational.

This free course have three recordings presenting the general issues of children's rights as well as exploring childhood and children's needs.
This topic defines the broad issue of children as citizens.
This audio file was recorded in 1998 but it’s interesting to have these points of views.

In these recordings we can heard : Esther Saraga Social Sciences Staff Tutor in the Open University's London region; Mary McLeod Director of Policy and Research at Childline and Ann Phoenix Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London.

This subject deals with the concepts of ‘welfare’, ‘power’ and ‘diversity’ and the theme of citizenship.
We can learn that all the children recognised that in order to have rights they also had responsibilities and that they also had to listen to each other and to take account of what they all said.
Themselves recognised that they had to listen to each other, and that they had to take their rights while still being under control.



It was very interesting to discover children’s vision and comportement. Children are very surprising and it’s good to see their social construction in our society. Today, children are setting example to the previous generations such as Youth for Climate.

Don’t worry John, this exercice is perfect to improve my english and my general knowledge.

Tomorrow’s society is built in today’s school !

Jordan Besson wrote:
Hello everyone, I’m going to talk about my autonomous work. I choose a boring subject. I know it’s sunday and this subject it’s perfect for this bad day. Bad day because it’s just before the new week and just before to finish our personal work on mini dol. Enjoy your life and please keep reading.

My subject is about children’s rights. It’s completely consistent with our studies but this lesson is not fun and dynamic. I would like a lesson more educational and recreational.

This free course have three recordings presenting the general issues of children's rights as well as exploring childhood and children's needs.
This topic defines the broad issue of children as citizens.
This audio file was recorded in 1998 but it’s interesting to have these points of views.

In these recordings we can heard : Esther Saraga Social Sciences Staff Tutor in the Open University's London region; Mary McLeod Director of Policy and Research at Childline and Ann Phoenix Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London.

This subject deals with the concepts of ‘welfare’, ‘power’ and ‘diversity’ and the theme of citizenship.
We can learn that all the children recognised that in order to have rights they also had responsibilities and that they also had to listen to each other and to take account of what they all said.
Themselves recognised that they had to listen to each other, and that they had to take their rights while still being under control.



It was very interesting to discover children’s vision and comportement. Children are very surprising and it’s good to see their social construction in our society. Today, children are setting example to the previous generations such as Youth for Climate.

Don’t worry John, this exercice is perfect to improve my english and my general knowledge.

Tomorrow’s society is built in today’s school !

What do you think has changed since 1998?

Clothilde Pluchart wrote:My subject is Children and young people : food and food marketing
Why did I choose this subject ?

I have choose this subject because i would like to improve my vocabulary in marketing orientate on the child target and finally because I like also the food such as said in the last publication.

I learned lot of things:

The first, the food marketing influences children’s food preferences and their eating, the UK has introduced rules that try to reduce marketing of junk foods to children and young people. However it's complicated to regulation of unhealthy food promotion in digital media such on the social media (you tube...)

Secondly, the works of marketer about the junk food for is resum in 5 things on the target childrens :
- their online searches
- their location
- sentiment analysis
- social media (hashtags, games, tweets)
- big picture (mix everything from location, to profile, to friends and feelings...)
I find it's really reduce the job of marketers and isn't not really my point of view.
Of more, companies of marketing said that teens target isn't a problem because they understand that it's advertising. However, the World Health Organization it's not agree with that and me too.

Third, the association in the UK try to be fight against the obesite with the reglementation such as In April 2018 the UK government brought in a sugar tax which meant manufacturers had to pay a levy on fizzy drinks with a high sugar level. One frequent response to sugar taxes by companies is to reduce sugar by adding artificial sweeteners to food and drinks. It's not had real solution.
My opinion I think it's a work collaborative between companies and society. If the beahavior of consumer change the problem don't existe anymore. And it's the even with the companies.

I hope this publication it's not too big. It's a subject interesting but I think changing for the next week.

Thanks.

Is there a similar setup in France?

ELISANGELA wrote:The course I choose to start this Autonomous Work is Marketing Analytics - University of Virginia.

This is my first choice and the main reason I would like to do this course is that the subject is deeply connected with what I do so I can update my knowledge and in the same time practice and improve my vocabulary in this field.  

I haven't started it yet because this course has date and time to start (tomorrow) so this can be a something that won't work for me, once the time zone in France is different from the USA. So, if the time is not flexible, I'll try my second option which is the same that Caroline has chosen.

Here are some topics we'll discover in this course:

- The marketing process
- Metrics for measuring brand assets
- Customer lifetime value
- Marketing experiments
- Regression basics

If you are interested in this subject, here is the link you can access:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/uva-darden-marketing-analytics

Have a great week!

Eli

I believe you can do it any time after it starts - pretty sure it's not time zone reliant.

Hi, hi !

Between taking charge of my thesis topic and the vast list of projects to be managed, I'm intervening to announce that I will be working on the topic "Working with our environment: an introduction." I didn't want to take a topic related to our teachings (for the moment) and I wanted to learn more about our environment, our current situation and also to develop my vocabulary (how empty) in this field.

The summary for those who might be interested :

"Global warming: are we responsible? Is our environmental impact damaging the planet? This free course examines the use of ozone depleting technology and the impact of fossil fuel use and explores how the development of technology can influence the direction of a society. From the Industrial Revolution to the present day find out how we have changed the planet."

Wish me luck and I'll do a little debriefing once this course is over.

See u later alligator.

Hello there

I see that everyone chose a topic related to marketing (except Meghane, of couuuuurse )...I personally decided to pick a course that has NOTHING TO DO with marketing as we already study it pretty much everyday hahaha
I wanted to study a topic related to science, because it has always been my greatest weakness (if i am to study a new subject i'd rather do something i'm completely unfamiliar with y'know). Buuuuuuuuut definetely not mathematics, so I chose Astronomy (i love stars !) (yes i know, Astronomy involves numbers and calculations but hey STARS). I've always felt drawn to space and its mysteries so why not.

I therefore chose the course named "Galaxies, Stars and Planets", which is on the introductory level (as i pretty much don't remember anything from highschool so). The first chapter was about very basic stuff about astronomy (such as how old the Universe is, what is the absolute zero, light-years....). Still really interesting tho.

I'll keep you in touch

Dear John,

I tried to start the autonomous work, but I really don't get it, maybe because I'm stupid (I don't hope so...) With the first link, I can not see the article, because I have to pay... and the second one, I don't get the aim because I can see the answer if I click reveal answeer.
Please could you help me ? You know that I want to have a lot of fun studying English

Thank you for the help

Somebody show Diana!

If not I'll see you on Thursday and explain.

Hi everyone,
So I've been studying "Climate change: solutions" by the University of Exeter. Don't have much to write about it so far. There's been an introduction to the current climate change event (nothing new here) and they are starting to expose the first solutions. Most of them are actually unachievable or not reliable. I've been following this course because I'm quite pessimistic about our future and how 2050 will be the beginning of our mass extinction so I'm hoping that some good news will come out of this course.
The good part is that there's a comment section where we can interact with each other. The bad part is that otherwise, the course is not very interactive. Hopefully, the rest of the class will be more stimulating!

Admin wrote:

ELISANGELA wrote:The course I choose to start this Autonomous Work is Marketing Analytics - University of Virginia.

This is my first choice and the main reason I would like to do this course is that the subject is deeply connected with what I do so I can update my knowledge and in the same time practice and improve my vocabulary in this field.  

I haven't started it yet because this course has date and time to start (tomorrow) so this can be a something that won't work for me, once the time zone in France is different from the USA. So, if the time is not flexible, I'll try my second option which is the same that Caroline has chosen.

Here are some topics we'll discover in this course:

- The marketing process
- Metrics for measuring brand assets
- Customer lifetime value
- Marketing experiments
- Regression basics

If you are interested in this subject, here is the link you can access:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/uva-darden-marketing-analytics

Have a great week!

Eli

I believe you can do it any time after it starts - pretty sure it's not time zone reliant.

Yeah Yeah.. the time zone was set just for the day that course started (yesterday).. the other challenge now it to get to use to the Indian accent of the professor

Hi all ! I'm taking advantage to this bad weather (unfortunately, it's just the beginning, new students, believe me ) to come here and talk with you about my autonomous work (It feels weird to write this, I feel like I can justify my power of autonomy to my parents after that ). But that's not the point here, so let's move on.

I had difficulties to choose my subject. Indeed, first, I choose some courses that didn't start for several weeks. After that, I choose how to make decision and it was not a good idea. Why ? Let me explain... YDo you know the feeling when a subject reminds you of your bad situation ? It is exactly what this courses makes me feel ahah. So I choose another one, really better for me and very interesting in terms of my formation in marketing. The name of this courses is : business fundamentals : customer engagement. It remains me a lot of things that we had learned last year in communication courses, especially about personnae. It still so important for me to learn about this subject because the customer engagement is for me a very important success key in business.
In this course, we go further in order to be aware of all the things we need to question in order to know as closely as possible consumer expectations.

I will come back to you once this course is finished in order to share with you all the interesting things I have learned during this one. I hope you enjoy your subjects too and that we will all learn with joy and good humour!

See you soon!

Hi John,

In France, it's similar but it's even better.

With the Health Act of January 2016, France aims to limit the risks of obesity, overweight and diabetes, particularly among young people, in accordance with the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). It provides that "the provision, free of charge, of drinks with added sugar or synthetic sweeteners, whether free of charge or for a flat-rate price, shall be prohibited in all places of catering open to the public, educational establishments and establishments intended to receive, train and accommodate minors".

In addition, a tax on sweetened drinks has existed in France since 2012.

We can see that France is trying not only to reduce the sugar content of drinks but also acts on the places where these snacks are made available.

I hope I answered your question, John.

Please make some efforts Diana please.

So I chose the course "An introduction to crime and criminology" because I always found interesting to understand how the brain of the murderers work and I am fascinating about it. (Maybe you already noticed it when you have seen about which series I talked last year...) and I know it's the same for a lot of people (in psychology studies at least ^^). So i want to improve my knowledge in this domain.

In the beginning of this article, it's trying to ask a question : how people can be fascinating by this kind of violence such crime? By the way, anywhere in the entertainment, the place of the world of crime is consequent. How many books, movies or series do you know where it holds a central position?

It seems to be two sides about the crime stories and crime in general : those who are fascinating and those who are afraid. But in fact, these two feelings are ambivalents and can go together very well.

Then, according to the article, we can understand a majority of us are criminals. Not murderers of course but, common criminal. Did you know for example that keep money found in the street is a crime ? Or something like stole a glass in a bar because it was pretty cool. (i'm sure i'm not the only one who did it ). Even be drunk on a public way. It's nothing but make us "criminal" (in the UK at least).

To resume : a crime is just an act which breaks the law.

But under circumstances, some crimes become a non-crime thing. We can think about the graffiti. When it's made on his own property, wall, etc it doesn't break the law but when it's on the public property or the someone else' property it's different, and it's become illegal.

Next episode soon

Hi there !

Now that I discovered this platform and the way you’re working on, I’m really excited about sharing and reading all the topics each of us have chosen to study.

As far as I’m concerned : I’m really interested in Design and Architecture so I’ve decided to choose, as a first topic, a course named « Modern Building Design ». This course is explaining why and how do we build today constructions according to sustainability aims. The course is underlining several factors leading us to make these building decisions. No surprises, of course, it treats factors such as climate change and technology. Indeed, it’s difficult to combine multiple functions a building has to fulfil (to host people, to open shops, restaurants…) with the comfort it offers and the carbon emissions it has to reduce.

As we all know, constructions are impacting the climate change. But, the real problem of course isn’t the construction in itself but the occupants’ behaviours, in its daily life, consuming energy with lights, radiators and everything supporting its comfort. (I can tell you than I’m feeling guilty about the radiator I’ve just put on to be more comfy in my very wet and cold apartment) .

Hence, the principal question asked in this course is : Are buildings evil ? And more particularly: are we evil ?
By evil, the professor wants to say (- definition:) : something that is conscious and destructive; a discrimination designed to harm others.
I let you answer…

Modern solutions of zero-energy consumption depend on many choices : the choice of materials we build the constructions with, the shape of buildings, and finally the reasonability people are looking for by renouncing to their comfy homies. Now we also use Big Data and technology to control all these issues (with « BIM : Building Information Modelling » => to have a better understanding of the impact that all of our buildings are having on our planet) and to follow up constructions. In few words, again, computers are surpassing humains.

Well, friends, be aware in your sweet homes !

‘hope that I didn’t bored ya

Hello,

I'm back I wanted to thank Alexis for his support....

It was difficult to get into the courses I was really interessed because of the opening dates, but I choosed the cours Good brain Bad brain. In the beginning the cours introduced the nervous system in order to explain how our brain works ! It explains the chemicals connections in the cells perspectives then introduce the anatomical perspective. Our brain has two major parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) as explained. In this course, as I understood, it will be focused on th CNS.

Let's see how it goes next week

In fact I think it's an interesting subject because all the decisions, actions, everything in our daily life, our brain is activited.

I hope I'll learn things related to work because it was in a management section...

See you later

Alexis is everyone's hero.

not all heroes wear capes...

Damaye Alexis wrote:not all heroes wear capes...

Some wear skinny trousers and ridiculous socks.

Hi everyone, I choose "Managing my investments" because I have some savings investment and I think it's important to learn how to manage them. I also would like to invest in the stock market after my study so this course is a good opportunity for me to improve my English and investments skills

So for the moment, it's really theoric but I learn some financial words that I didn't know like "savings" which is all the money that you win with your investments.
The course also talks about why it's important for our society that the people invest => Because if someone invests in the market, that provides a capital to keep our society running.
So I think that I will continue this course and if I have some more answer about how to become a good investor I will give you

So Hi everyone ,

i see that all of you choose an interesting subject (... well almost ) and that the discussion we can have would be very interesting .
For my part i pick the course "the value of coffee" because coffee is an important actor in my life . The course doesn't talk about what happen when we drink coffee or something like that , that we usually read or see .
It is more focused on the economic and cultural value of coffee. 
I find it interesting because knowing where a product we  eat or drink every day comes from, which countries it visited before coming to us or which hands he passed, it's important.
While i was reading , I found something that really makes me think that the world we are living in, it's a paradox.
Infact It is estimated that the global economic value of coffee amounts to around $173 billion per annum (ICC, 2014), but those who grow coffee are some of the most disadvantaged countries in the world. 
To make it easier, It's like if you have a room full of gold in your house and you are hungry and don't have even a piece of bread. 
Well, this was just a sentence i wanted to share with you. The course seems interesting and i will tell you more in the next episode 

Hi guys...

In this first week, we had a little review of the marketing process... basic points as 4ps, strategy, types of analytics, but the most interesting thing we studied is base on Airbnb case.

How they use text analytics (sentiment analysis) to measure and to interpret unstructured text to find patterns and product ratings on the reviews we leave on their website and improve their marketing strategies.

During the course, we are able to do some quizzes to help us to better understand the content and in the end of each week, we do a final test to earn a certificate

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/uva-darden-marketing-analytics

Eli