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Home / Language / Language Teaching / Lessons and Teaching / Seven tips for your FutureLearn Course

Seven tips for your FutureLearn Course

Tips for using FL video
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4.3
Hi, I’m Claire. And I’m part of the British Council educator team for the FutureLearn MOOCs. And in this video we’re going to give some of our tips to help you make the most out of your course. My tip is really simple, and it’s just to get involved in the course.
26.8
These courses are all about social learning and interacting with people all over the world. And to do that, you can type comments. On every step of the course, we’ll be asking you for your ideas and opinions. And to type your comment or answer, you just click here and start typing. Or you can reply to somebody else’s comment. I’m sure that as soon as you start commenting and interacting with other people on the course, you’ll feel a part of the course. So don’t worry about your English or don’t worry about your ideas– are they good enough– just dive in and get involved and start commenting and enjoy your course.
74.8
Hello, everybody. This is Neeraj from Barcelona. Here’s my tip for getting the most out of this course. We love to read your comments and the replies to the steps and the activities there, but especially we like it when participants react to each other and respond to each other.
99.9
It’s great when we see people reading each other’s posts, replying to each other’s posts, and telling them if they agree and if they don’t agree also. We especially like it when people develop very nice conversations with each other. And it’s great to leave a comment and then get a reply back from perhaps the other side of the world– from somebody living in a completely different country. Hi. I’m Sally. My tip is to follow interesting people.
139.2
So if you see a comment that you like, you can click on ‘Like’, and you can also follow that person. And you should also definitely follow all the educators so that you can easily find their comments and find out what they’ve been saying on the course. OK? Have fun. Hi. My name’s Neil. And we’ve heard some great advice from other educators about joining in conversations and following other learners, and, of course, following the educators. But after you’ve done all that, probably the first thing you’ll notice is that there are lots of comments. I mean, lots of comments. Sometimes thousands on a single step.
184.5
It can sometimes be a bit difficult to know where to start and how to pick up where you left off or how to make sure that you haven’t missed anything good. So my tips are about how you can use the FutureLearn filters to manage these conversations and quickly find the comments and discussions that you want.
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When you look at the comments, you’ll see two drop-down menus– Show and Sort By. If you click on Show, you can choose to look at comments from people you’re following, or you can check on any conversations that you’re involved in by clicking on your comments. Also, when you’re reading through comments and you find one that you want to go back to later, you can bookmark it and then you can find it by using the Show Bookmarked option here. The Sort By menu is another useful tool. Just click on Most Liked, and then you can quickly find the most active discussions and the hottest topics and instantly see what’s been generating the most interest since the last time you visited.
249.1
So that’s my tip. Try these filters, and they’ll really help you get the most out of the course.
256.2
Hello. My name is David. And my top tip is look out for the live events on the course.
265.6
Live events are a great opportunity for you to get to interact directly with the educators on the course. And we always have at least one or two of these on every course. On the menu on FutureLearn, look for anywhere where it says ‘Live’. These are normally very near the beginning of the week, these pages. You can write a question on the step, and we will try to answer it during the live event. Or you can just make a note of the day and the time and come back and take part live. And if you can’t take part live, don’t worry. We always put a recording of the event onto the course later. So live events– don’t miss them. Hi.
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I’m Sirin. And my top tip is keep checking the course regularly.
319.7
New things appear during the course– the recordings of the live events, the weekly review videos where we talk about what we have found interesting– so try to keep checking in on the course regularly, especially on a Friday. Check your emails, too, as we’ll send you updates. This will help you stay current on class discussions and announcements. Also, checking the course regularly will help you stay on task and enhance your learning experience at the same time.
348.9
Hello, everyone. I’m Tina. You’ve just heard from all the other educators, giving you some wonderful advice on how to make the most out of our courses. So all that’s left for me to say is, just remember, it’s your course, and you do it how you want to do it.
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You can jump ahead to week two, you could miss a step– it’s your choice. Just remember to enjoy it and have fun.

Watch some of the British Council educators from our MOOC teams talking about how you can get the most out of your course.

In the video, Sally said you should follow the educators so you can always find their comments easily.

Meet the team

We have a global team of educators and mentors waiting to answer your questions and join your conversations. For your course they are:

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This content is taken from
British Council online course,

Lessons and Teaching

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Suzanne Mordue (South Tyneside, UK) – Lead Educator
Hugh Black (Bilbao, Spain) – Mentor
Lesley Dick (Colombo, Sri Lanka) – Mentor
Anya Shaw (UK) – Mentor
Ian Williams (Bedfordshire, UK) – Mentor
Norma Swyngedauw (Colombo, Sri Lanka) – Mentor
Rebecca Place (Spain) – Mentor
Kamani Taneja (Mumbai, India) – Mentor
Anne Lennon (Bilbao, Spain) – Mentor

They will be joining in with some of your conversations and answering some of your questions. Remember to click on the links to their profiles and follow them to find out what they are replying to.

We hope this video helps you get to know how this course will work but if you have any questions about how to use this course, ask us in the comments below.

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This content is taken from British Council online course
Lessons and Teaching
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