I signed up for an online course with Duke University (free).
It started on 13th January and is set to run for 12 weeks.
Each week I get an email to tell me the next set of lectures
is available and I am now into week 3. I am a bit behind; that is I still need
to complete 2 lectures from last week and the associated test for each lecture.
They cutely refer to them as quizzes – probably so we don’t get too stressed
out. And during the lecture one gets little ‘quizzes’ thrown in to ensure we understand,
at least up to that point.
I haven’t done anything like this for ages and whilst it is
all online and quite impersonal I have been concerned to keep on top of things
and do well. I know that if I don’t keep up to date I will find it difficult to
catch up later. I have also been concerned, for no apparent reason and quite
illogically, that my lecturer is keeping a beady eye on my progress – imagine my
relief when I saw that there are 5,000 people doing this course…he cant
possibly check up on me each week!
Here’s the thing: This course is so well done – it does,
after all, come from a top US university. You get about 10 lectures per week; each
lecture is approx 15 to 20 minutes long. You are quizzed during and after the
lecture. If you get something wrong you are told why it is wrong – if you get
the question right you are told why it is correct (just in case you took a wild
guess I suppose). And then you can take the test again and hopefully score
100%. They do keep track of how many times you have a bash at it.
The place to go to
for a list of free online courses is: http://www.openculture.com/
You will also find a host of other things at this site: free
language courses (Lisa is doing a Spanish course which she says is amazing),
business courses, maths courses, art, art history, music, archaeology, biology,
economics …in fact just about anything. You can also get free e-books, films,
text books ---- an amazing amount of free stuff.
Have fun!
