Sunday 12 January 2014

Getting an education - online

I'm totally excited about two online courses that signed up for this month. There's a Spanish one, which starts tomorrow; and an English editing course that starts on the 23rd. Both courses run over four weeks.


This online course thing has really ballooned. Many top universities offer a variety of courses; as do other institutes and colleges. There's an incredible variety. Some are certificate courses; others are not. There really is something for everyone. From learning about jazz and poetry to learning languages, computer programming, design skills, art history, child education... there's so much available. And free too!

This website - Open Culture - seems to collate courses available from all over the place. They've currently got listings for Jan and Feb 2014 courses. You'll find courses presented on the sites below on Open Culture too - the sites below just have better presentation.

Useful sites include:

  • Coursera - bunch of US and global education partners
  • EdX - this site lists courses available from Harvard, Berkley, MIT, Boston and a bunch of other universities - not all US.
  • Udacity - they offer project-based online courses - technology themed.
The instructor for my Spanish course, which I start tomorrow, seems really organised. We've got to sign up for weekly forums where we speak to each other. We've got written submissions to do and various other elements. They use a lot of music and video to teach - a very interactive and online environment. Gonna be fun.

Let me know if you sign up for anything :)

1 comment:

adventurelisa said...

FYI - my friend Deon has now signed up for two courses - "Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses, Part I| and "Introduction to Finance".

My mom is doing one on "Think again: how to reason and argue".