Coursera: Dozens of Free, Massive, and Open Online Courses

Titus Andronicus writes "Professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng of Stanford University announced a major expansion in the catalog of free, massive, open online courses being offered by the company they founded, Coursera. The subject areas include computer science, mathematics, and business. The providers include Stanford, Princeton, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania. Even more courses are expected to be announced by competitors such as Udacity, MITx, Minerva, and Udemy — perhaps soon. Is this the future of education?"

Part of It

[englishknnigits]

I think the Khan Academy has a pretty good model. You can learn at your own pace at home and then get person to person (from teacher or fellow students) help the following day. Having the learning and exercises take place online lets teachers easily see how far each student got, how long they spent on each problem, etc. Having a really talented teacher prepare lectures online also helps alleviate the disparagement between education received by people with crappy teachers versus students who are blessed with good teachers.

New York Times article link + 1st paragraph

[Anonymous Coward]

Paywalled, but here is the first part of the article. If the URL works for you, great, if not, try searching Google News for a long phrase from this paragraph and hope the click-through works.
--cut here--
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/technology/coursera-plans-to-announce-university-partners-for-online-classes.html [nytimes.com]

Online Education Venture Lures Cash Infusion and Deals With 5 Top Universities
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: April 18, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO - An interactive online learning system created by two Stanford computer scientists plans to announce Wednesday that it has secured $16 million in venture capital and partnerships with five major universities.

--cut here--

Rough on the Adult

[hagrin]

I'm a 33 year old homeowner with a full-time job and a LLC to do small consulting projects under. I have a fiance, a husky/samoyed/malamute mix and about a half acre of property to maintain now that it's spring time here in New York. I also have two small entrepreneurial ideas I am trying to subcontract out to some friends as a side project. I'm really well scheduled with my time and I decided to try and do 2 courses at once - Algo I and Cryptography.

I made it two weeks.

A problem set, a homework and at least 4.5 hours worth of video without even looking at the suggested texts that were outlined in the first set of videos - and that was one course (Algos). With 1 week deadlines, there is a serious time crunch that doesn't allow for much in the way of "unexpected happenstance" like when I needed to do some electrical rewiring in my kitchen or assemble 3 pieces of outdoor furniture. I fully admit that I bit off more than I could chew signing up for two courses. I also fully admit that I probably need to sacrifice something on my list above in order to free up more time, but I'm not sure I can bury the fiance in the backyard legally. However, I fully understand now why people say it's _really_ (read - not impossible) difficult to continue schooling once "real life starts".

I wish the deadline schedule was a little more lenient although I do understand its purpose and I realize my outside commitments account for a large chunk of my problems. A little more leniency in the schedule would have really helped me "find the time".