Another advantage to online learning is the ability to
access and learn from free or lower cost online classes or lectures. I am going
to provide some information and websites for massive open online courses
(MOOCs). MOOCs are web based classes that support a large number of people.
Some of the companies are Coursera, iTunes U, Khan Academy, TED, Kaggle,
LingoSteve’s Language Corner, edx, deka glossai, Udacity, and YouTube This
could help adults without college degrees or students who love to learn or need
help learning.
Coursera was founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng who
believe learning should not have a limit. Coursera offers 217 courses from 85 colleges
and universities like Columbia, Duke, Yale, University of Chicago
and University of
Pennsylvania, which can
be up to 6 weeks in length. Although the colleges and universities offer free
online classes or lectures themselves they don’t allow there own students to
get credit using the MOOCs. Five of the online classes have been considered
college credit worthy by the American Council of Education (ACE) that is as
long as the anti-cheat policy is enforced. ACE is a boost to the reputation and
financial backing of MOOCs it represents college and university presidents.
This means that colleges may grant credit for them. Currently, Colorado State
University, Antioch University Los Angeles, and Excelsior College offers credit
for one or two MOOC courses, but the enrollment for these courses has been less
than desired or expected through Coursera. Now on the flip side even though
most classes don’t provide credit there is a better turn out for example approximately
40,000 people enrolled in the pre-calculus class. The majority of the classes
do not have the ability to be transferred or counted toward a degree. The
classes are usually free, but a fee from $30 to $99 can be charged for a
certificate of completion for ACE credit courses, to make sure you didn’t
cheat. A transcript is also available for ACE credit classes. It is different
from iTunes U because Coursera is interactive, you can ask questions and get
answers, and you can get assignments and grades as well. However, some of the
lectures maybe the same for more than one company, YouTube and iTunes U could
have the same lectures as Coursera. Another thing to note is that 90% of the
people who enroll in the classes don’t complete them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PojLL3E-zk0
iTunes U is an app for the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch and
it offers a wide range of complete online higher educational classes for free.
Downloads have exceeded 1 billion. It offers 217 courses from 1200 colleges and
universities like Berkeley, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, the University of
California, and Yale to name a few. Some of the lectures are offered from
famous people like Tomas Laqueur or David Blight. One course has had as many as
500,000 students at one time.
Khan Academy offers over 3,300 videos for free on math,
physics and history. Some of the videos have been used in K thru 12 schools
with some controversy. The videos were originally created by Sal Kahn to help
his cousins with their homework, but ended up going viral. Some teachers and
professors have stated that some of the information that has been provided by
Khan is not correct. If you would like to read more about the controversy
follow this link http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/sal-khan-responds-to-critic/2012/07/25/gJQA83rW9W_blog.html.
TED Talks is made up of the best TED conferences. It started
from the idea that ideas should be shared so a conference was placed online and
the audience grew so big that every inspiring talk is available on-demand. The
talks are on a variety of topics and have been viewed more than a billion
times.
Kaggle provides a platform for analytics and predictive
modeling competitions. It is free to data scientists. The winners of the
competition can be utilized to help answer questions for businesses that pay a
fee to Kaggle to answer complex data problems.
edX is a not-for-profit offered through Harvard University
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It offers online versions
of a wide range of subjects like Behavioral Economics, Intro to Computer
Science and Programming, and Circuits and Electronics. There are 77 courses
available. The courses are from several universities or colleges including
Harvard, MIT, University of Toronto, and Berkeley.
Udacity is another MOOC it was founded by Michael Sokolsky,
David Thrun, and David Stavens. There are currently 28 lectures. The videos are
interspersed with questions. The questions are there to help you judge what you
are learning and to make it interactive. The good thing is that the courses are
free.
YouTube, I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say you can
find almost everything and anything there. If you don’t understand a concept or
you just want to have someone explain a subject a different way search for it
by subject or content and there are usually several videos, lectures or
examples available for free. There are both broad and detailed topics available.
YouTube is also interactive. It provides the ability to ask questions of the
person that has posted the information, but there is not a guaranteed response.
Below I have listed examples of educational information available through
YouTube
LingoSteve’s Language
Corner is made up of YouTube videos that provide information on how to be
successful at learning another language. It does not teach you another
language. Deka Glossai provides
YouTube videos to help others understand and learn a few different ancient
words in a few ancient languages like Latin, Greek and Russian. The videos are
from 15 minutes or more.
I have reviewed 10 different options for free learning.
Maybe you are aware of one that I missed that may be helpful to others or have
a comment on one that I have listed. What do you think of free online learning?
I have included the website for the companies I have listed if available.
www.coursera.org
www.khanacademy.org
Sources:
I personally love the TED talks. They're free, informative, often humorous, and many times inspire you to think about something in a different light. Rather than being actual coursework online, you can find a quick 15-20 blurb in just about any subject... take a break from whatever it is you're doing, and learn something new. I also love that TED makes an effort to put as many of the talks/performances online as possible. Not everyone can afford to attend an actual TED conference (as cool as it would be to see one in person), and this allows a greater number of people access to sometimes pretty revolutionary ideas.
ReplyDeleteHere's one of my favorites that I've stashed away, to be entertained on rainy days:
http://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_mcferrin_hacks_your_brain_with_music.html
This is interesting. I was familiar with Khan Academy because I have definitely utilized that before but I did not realize how many other options were out there. This is great to know. Even for people who don't need the free classes, it's good for extra help in courses they are currently enrolled in elsewhere. I am going to be sure to keep these websites/apps in mind for help in my studies!
ReplyDeleteI was not aware that anyone offered anything for free anymore. This is amazing. What a great idea if you could find a course that you wanted or needed more information on for free. The typical broke college student needs all the freebies they can get. My motto is if it's free it's for me. I will definitely be checking some of the website out. Wonderful POST!!!
ReplyDeleteI can see this coming in handy to supplement a course you are already taking. Like, maybe if had a teacher that just talks and talks and never teaches anything but expects you to know the material come test time. I would probably consider taking one of these courses for free to watch the videos and actually try to learn something. I think if more of the courses offered credit toward a degree there would be more interest, but we'll see what the future brings.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t know about these free online classes, it is good to know about this. I think it is a good option for graduates who already have a degree but would like to learn more, especially for those who have education debts, they could enjoy in more classes for free, they could keep learning more about the education career they have. Excellent choice!! Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI think free online learning is excellent for personal use (meaning not getting college credit) and I really don’t see much negative about it that way. Especially, it seems great when many reputable universities have contributed courses, such as with iTunes U. However, the value of it is questionable when you want college credit from it and must pay for certificate… there are many questions about the trust that universities will recognise the credit.
ReplyDelete