幸运的是，我们生活在一个慕课时代

再不慕课就老了

Yesterday I posted a translated article from the Economist to Jianshu, a popular reading and writing website. The article is about MOOCs, short for Massive Open Online Courses. The readers' enthusiasm astonished me. The article was soon included in The Editor's Recommendation at the Front Page where it didn't take long for the view number to soar to 1500+. Some commented "it broadens my horizons." Another asked me to recommend some MOOCs websites. All these prove that MOOCs are not just media hype, but rather on to something. People aspiring to improve themselves flock to various MOOC websites, trying to acquire skills ranging from the basic to the cutting-edge.

Horizon has different meanings and here it means the limit of your ideas, knowledge, and experience. Something that broadens one's horizons can also be described as an eye-opener. Hype can be used as a verb, and in "media hype" it is a noun which means extravagant claims about a person or product. Flock can refer to a group of sheep, goats, or birds, and if people flock to a place, they go there in large numbers because something interesting or exciting is happening there.

I used to take some lessons on Udacity, a MOOC provider, and found out courses are divided into many short segments, each along with one or two quizzes. I assume the test and instant feedback system is one of the vital traits that make the online learning more effective than traditional school learning. Receiving as much feedback as possible, actually, is vital for people to improve in any aspect.

Luckily, we are living in a MOOC era.

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昨天我把<经济学家>的一篇翻译文章发布到，一个流行的阅读和写作网站。该文是关于慕课，即大型开放在线课程的简称。读者的热情让我惊讶。这篇文章很快就被列入了“首页编辑推荐”，没过多久它的阅读数就已经达到1500+。有些人评论说“它拓宽了我的视野”。另一个读者要求我推荐一些慕课网站。所有这些证明了慕课不只是媒体炒作，而是正在实现一些有价值的东西。渴望提高自己的人们涌向各种慕课网站，试图获得从基础到最前沿的各种技能。

Horizon有不同的含义，这里它意味着你的想法，知识和经验的极限。拓宽视野的东西也可以被描述为开眼界。 炒作可以用作动词，在“媒体炒作”中，它是一个名词，意味着对某人或产品的过分宣传。 Flock可以指一群绵羊，山羊或鸟类，如果人们涌向一个地方，他们大量去那里，因为有趣的或令人兴奋的事情正在那里发生。

我曾经在Udacity（一个慕课提供网站）上学习一些课程，发现课程分为许多短片段，每个片段都有一两个测验。我认为测试和即时反馈系统是使在线学习比传统学校学习更有效的重要特征之一。接收尽可能多的反馈，实际上，对于想要在任何方面有所进步的人来说都是至关重要的。

幸运的是，我们生活在一个慕课时代。