A colleague recently turned me on to an intriguing concept called Coursera. The goal? Make top notch education available to the masses. Sound like a gimmick?
I thought so.
But it’s not – at least, it doesn’t seem that way. Professors from the best colleges and universities in the country sign up to offer courses in a number of disciplines to the general public free of charge, using Coursera’s online learning platform. The professors record lectures, create quizzes, assignments, and various other ways to get you to master the material. Did I say that it was free?
I couldn’t pass up free education, so I signed up for a statistics course and an operations management course, both of which would be useful in my day-to-day work. But there are some really neat courses I only wish I had time to take, such as Think Again: How to Reason and Argue by Duke University professors Walter Sinnot-Armstrong and Ram Neta. That course doesn’t begin until November, so if I successfully pass my other courses, I may sign up for that one as well.
I should clarify that not all of the institutions represented on Coursera are Ivy League (after all, that would be a pretty closed group) but the “non-Ivy League” schools include Stanford, Duke, Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins, etc. Those are best of the best schools. A free education by any of their professors would be considered a gift for life.
The Ivy League schools represented include U Penn and Princeton. It’s only a matter of time before you’ll start to see courses offered by professors from Cornell and Yale and Brown as well. (Again – do you really need to be convinced to jump on this?)
No class size limit – so if you want your entire organization to take a course, great. The technology and course design can support any number of students. Coursera is a venture with a mission: by offering the best education in the world to the world, free, they can collect and analyze tons of useful data about education and learning. It’s a fabulous win-win situation. We get free education (read: information). They get information. And information is power once you know what to do with it.
Check out Coursera.org and let me know what you think? Are you in?
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Yes!!! This does sound to good to be true. I guess the question that everyone will really want to know is, will you actually get credit for the classes you take. I love education, but in my quest to get my degree, will this be a good use of my time towards that goal?
Thanks for the post!
Hey Joe – No. That’s the thing. You don’t get credit and it doesn’t count towards a degree of any kind. Instead, it’s an experiment to see if the world will take up free education for the sake of education. And it looks like it’s working!
Thanks for your comment!
hey i found one useful Course for me (course on android app developement).Thanks for your info.
You’re welcome. They have some really neat ones.
It’s pretty exciting to live in a day and age where we have access to such unbelievable educational tools…for free. Looking forward to the Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses given by a University of Virginia professor.
Right!? That course looks really cool just from it’s title. And hey, you can never go wrong with learning from a UVA prof. That’s where my brother attended undergrad.
Hey Tia!
This is a great idea, I’m glad you blogged about it. I just signed up for it so I can finally get my “quantum mechanics” on!
Looks like the link in the first paragraph is broken, though. At first I thought it was the man trying to keep us from getting our education, but I guess it’s probably just a typo.
I like to inject some drama in my life. Aw, shucks…
Anyway, hope all has been well!
Oh thanks, John! I’ll check it out.
This sounds like an interesting site. I’m a big fan of furthering education, but haven’t found any of those courses to have good holding power (they get boring), hence the reason why the Khan academy is so effective. The Khan academy’s style gives you more of a personal feel. In saying this, I will definitely give Coursera.org a shot.
I’ve heard of the Khan academy. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for your comment!
I have already signed up with them for a course.The best thing thing about the course is that its completely free.Thanks for sharing.