MOOCs

September 14, 2013

 

MOOCs

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) offer terrific Internet educational opportunities: use them to take courses from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and UCLA, and many others, all from the comfort of your home, office or any place where you have an Internet connection.

Many MOOCs are free, although college credit may be available for some for a fee. More than a thousand courses are available; topics range from quantum physics to music of the Beatles, sustainable agriculture, Roman architecture, Smart Growth for Private Businesses, and many others.

Need proof? Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) from Stanford attracted 160,000 people from 209 countries for the first class; it’s still popular for teaching modern Artificial Intelligence, techniques of machine learning, robotics, and more. The course is free and given by Peter Norvig, now director of Research at Google, and Sebastian Thrun, Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford.

Yes! There are other less technical courses, such as:

Online Games: Literature, New Media and Narrative, a seven-week course given by Jay Clayton, Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. This course explores what happens to traditional stories and films, such as Lord of the Rings, when they become the focus of an online game. You get a certificate of completion when you finish the course.

Learning materials for MOOCs are available via video, books, lectures, demonstrations, Internet searches, blogs, tweets or Facebook, and most importantly, interaction with other students.

Course listings and more at www.coursera.org. Don’t miss out!

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