Free online university courses

[noracharles]

I miss uni very much. Last week I went to a lecture about the Arabian spring arranged by Kvinfo, and it was brilliant, but to my disappointment the vast majority of their activities are in Copenhagen. (Typisk københavneri, øv.) It's the wrong time of year to audit classes at SDU, and it might also be too awkward to do it. Not all the teachers permit it, and I have been thrown out of a class once for not preparing well enough that my presence was a benefit to others, which was the condition the teacher had.

Today I learned about Coursera, a free social network that offers genuine university lectures, regular tests and homework to ensure learning, and online forums/studygroups. Because of the built-in deadlines and the way you must complete assignments to progress, it looks more suited to my needs than downloading podcasts of lectures (I listen to the first one then forget about it) or following organized reading blogs (I skim what others have to say but don't do the assigned readings myself).

Completing a course will not give you any official credit, but I want to learn stuff and I want to have an interesting hobby. So far I have signed up for the class Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, taught by Eric Rabkin of the University of Michigan, which will start 23 July 2012. It will be nice and comforting to have a subject I'm familiar with, and I hope some of you will join me.

I'll also sign up for some computer classes, and hope the 101 level is easy enough for me to follow with my background.

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

There you are! You've been quiet, and I was wondering how you were enjoying your "vacation". Now I guess I know ;oP

I've never heard about Coursera before but it sounds pretty amazing that it's for free. I only know of The Teaching Company's lectures, and they're decidedly pricy.

Which computer classes are you looking at?

[noracharles]

I've signed up for everything that doesn't have any prerequisites, but I can see that I will need to know a programming language for most of the computer science classes. I'm holding off on that until I know if I enjoy the format. I will also need to brush up on algebra and calculus! It's been a long time since I learned anything about that in school, and they didn't offer any advanced classes on the linguistics track, as you know.

The great thing about Coursera is that I have everything to gain and nothing to lose even if I do sign up for a class that proves too work-intensive.

Today I watched the lectures and completed the homework for two classes: Introduction to Logic and CS101.

Introduction to Logic is fascinating. I know a bit about logic already, of course, and since this is only an introductory course I was able to use common sense and what little I already knew, so it was easy to follow along and complete the homework, but I still felt that I learned something new and could strech my brain a little :-)
If nothing else, this first lesson taught me why Sherlock Holmes uses "deduction" wrong, heh.

Computer Science 101 is entertaining, but so far has not taught me anything new. On the plus side, completing the homework took all of 5 minutes, so it's not a great investment of time and effort.

The assignments for those two classes are due at the end of this week, so now's the time to join if you're interested.

[calvinahobbes]

My dream is to one day take something akin to TTC's High School Basic Math. There was so much stuff I simply gave up on, and sometimes I wish I hadn't been allowed to believe that it was okay to just give up on basic learning like that.

CS sounds interesting, but I am having so much trouble getting anything done these days. (Does Coursera have a Life Management 101 course? I need one of those.) So I better not pile anything else up that might pull any more time away from exam prep :o/

How does Sherlock Holmes use deduction wrong?

[noracharles]

I've thought of buying Hej Matematik and just going through the workbooks. But realistically I would never get around to it.

Yeah, I understand. It's not like you need more university courses in your life, especially not ones you don't get credit for.

It's a longer explanation than I'm interested in going into, sorry.

[calvinahobbes]

One day I'm going to do it! I hope... But seriously, I've even forgotten how to do long division.

Hee, technically I did that last semester ;oP

That is okay, I totally get that!

[noracharles]

Oho! There is Khan Academy for all your math learning needs.

[calvinahobbes]

Cool!

You know, I don't think I'll ever truly get used to thinking of the Net as so much of a resource. Maybe I'm a bit stuck mostly thinking of it as a toy, and it keept surprising me that if I want to re-learn division or know how to remove cola from a tablecloth, some helpful person has probably already made a wiki-how.

[onyxlynx]

Wow. Sounds interesting, and I've been casting around for some brain calisthenics!

(The aside tickled me!)

[noracharles]

It's a lot of fun! I've started learning Python at udacity.com as well, I couldn't wait. It's really stretching my mind, but the teacher has a great sense of humor and is good at explaining. I wonder how much I will retain tomorrow after learning so much in so short a space of time.

[kabal42]

Now that's really interesting! I might go do some of that too. I've been following a uni class this spring, which has been wonderful! Next week is the last class of the semester, though.

[noracharles]

Oh, really? Just auditing the class, or via Open University?

I recommend the online classes, it's fun and I feel like I'm learning more intensively with the combination of audio narration, visual demonstrations, written notes and practical exercises to drill in what you've just been taught.

[kabal42]

Just auditing. My ex-advisor's class. I think it tickled his ego too ;-) And it's been fun!

Nice :-) I'll definitely look into it!