A few minutes more with a MOOC

It’s only that much — four minutes and forty-eight seconds — 4:48 — that Americans spend on educating themselves on their day off (the Bureau of Labor Statistics and NPR Planet Money).

Granted, it’s our day off. Right?

We’ve got other things to do. Like sleep. And we’re lucky we get in any minutes of education, especially those of us with multiple jobs, kids and/or parents we take care of.

Here’s the deal, though — according to a recent Businessweek article, a 2011 survey of 1,083 employed and unemployed workers by consulting firm Accenture (ACN) found that only 21 percent of them said they developed additional skills via company-provided corporate training during the previous five years.

The economic downturn has kept corporate training downtrodden. Professionals across generations aren’t getting the continuing education needed to improve unpolished skills. Enterprises won’t be able to complete without an educated workforce, one that is continuously learning in new and exciting ways and at low if any costs.

How about a MOOC or two? Yep, MOOC. MOOC stands for “massively open online courses.” These free online classes are taught by entrepreneurial enterprises that may include partnerships with major universities.

Online learning isn’t new, but it hasn’t been very exciting to date. Today the opportunity to connect, communicate and collaborate with other like-minded professionals and organizations online via MOOC’s and other dynamic formal-to-informal learning environments is giving the globe a new leg up.

So this weekend, let’s stretch a few minutes more with a MOOC, because the return is always in the stretch.

Read the entire Businessweek article here: Our (Work) Education Crisis: Send In the MOOCs.