Catnip for autodidacts

October 25, 2018 5:45 PM

Quartz has compiled a list of 600 free online courses offered by 190 universities around the world.
posted by jenkinsEar (10 comments total)

The list is interesting, but it is weird to look at just the last 4 months of new MOOCs (and it isn't even an exhaustive list). There are lots of older MOOCs that are either still awesome, or else have been refreshed in the last four months. For example, I launched one new MOOC on crowdfunding last year that is still current, and we regularly refresh the entrepreneurship MOOC I am also part of.
posted by blahblahblah at 6:03 PM on October 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Bah not a single brain surgery course. Well close.
posted by sammyo at 6:32 PM on October 25, 2018

Takes up far less space than that shelf of books you'll never read.

In all seriousness though, would anyone care to point out specific courses they found personally improving and well put together? It would help those of us who are likely to cobble a list of several dozen they intend to take at once, get overwhelmed, and shelf the whole thing fully intending to take it up later, which we won't. Bonus points for non-CS/Software related.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 7:45 PM on October 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

What I don't understand is why moocs are structured as if they were constrained by the availability of instructors or an academic calender. If you really wanted to have people learn why wouldn't you just make them open ended with all the materials available all the time and if you had to have discrete time periods only have that for testing or whatever work you are supposed to do.
posted by Pembquist at 8:53 PM on October 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

Sometimes sections are graded or require feedback/interaction. Having some limits not only makes timely responses possible but develops a sense of community/connectedness and most importantly, is proven to aid learning.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:23 PM on October 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

The constraint is a way for these institutions to control the usage of their IP and so on. If it were really about independent or free ("free as in speech, not pizza") learning it wouldn't be organized in this way. I'm not saying MOOCs are horrible but that they have their uses if one approaches these systems critically.
posted by polymodus at 11:48 PM on October 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I took a couple of online courses on classical theater in a foreign language I was studying at the time. I never would have pushed myself to read those plays if I hadn't, and even if I'm still not fluent in the language I learned a lot about history and culture that makes me feel like a more balanced, rounded person. So if you're going to look into this sort of thing, approach it as more of a hobby than a job training step.
posted by fomhar at 11:56 PM on October 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

I’m giving myself a reminder of Roman History as I have forgotten what I learned in college. I find it fun and interesting.
posted by my-username at 6:45 AM on October 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Logic for Economists from University of Amsterdam

I've always suspected that economists have logic that differs from the rest of us.
posted by slogger at 7:45 AM on October 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thanks for this!
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 7:46 AM on October 26, 2018