5/13 MOOCs
Online Learning with MOOCs
One of the hottest topics in higher education right now is the onset of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courseware.) A large number of universities and faculty (including me) have been recording classes and releasing them for free to students and anybody else who’s interested. The entire lecture content of a number of very interesting courses are available. While these are largely at the college level, they can be useful for high school students.
Khan Academy
Salmon Khan earned three degrees from MIT in Math and Computer Science, and an MBA from Harvard Business school. While working as a hedge fund analyst, Khan created some math tutorials for his young cousin. The videos were released on YouTube where they became wildly popular, so he produced more. Eventually, Khan quit his finance job to work full-time on Khan Academy, a non-profit educational organization that provides top-notch math instruction to anyone for free.
Presently, Khan academy includes 3,600 small videos, mainly covering mathematics and sciences. The primary focus is on math, with coverage from addition all the way to calculus. Most of the math lessons are delivered by Khan himself, in his relaxed, non-threatening, but clearly knowledgeable tone.
You can use Khan academy in a number of ways. I particularly love the knowledge map:
https://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard This is an interactive map of all math from arithmetic to calculus, showing the relationships between the various skills. If you don’t know exactly where you are in math, you can pick a topic. You’re then given a number of exercises in that topic. Right next to the exercise is a list of links to mini-lectures that might be helpful. For example, if you’re doing a pre-algebra lesson on arithmetic properties, you might have a question about the distributive law. If you’re not sure, there’s a lesson right there on the distributive law. You can watch the video then come back to the exercise. For every exercise, there are tips and videos available if you get stuck.
Khan academy allows each student to log in and keeps track of student progress. The progress system is organized like a video game with various achievements and rankings. Of course a parent or teacher can use the information to determine how a student is doing and to recommend a particular set of lectures or problems.
In addition to the standard offerings, Khan also has a wonderful test prep program, going through sample problems for many tests including the SAT. This can be an invaluable aid, and is equivalent to expensive test preparation programs.
Khan is famous for its math program, but it’s branching into other fields too, notably computer science. Be sure to take a look at the Khan site if anybody in your family needs help with math.
Saylor.org
Saylor.org is an incredible online university. While it does not issue degrees, it has dozens of courses available. Most are at the College level, though many would also be suitable for high school students. Saylor has a complete math curriculum, including advanced math topics. It also has a nice “real world math” program with a foundations course (looks similar to a pre-algebra course), algebra, and geometry. These courses in particular would be very good for SAT preparation.
The content of the Saylor courses varies. Most of the courses include extensive readings (which are almost always selected from free online or downloadable resources.) Most courses have assignments, which are typically self-graded. Many courses have video components, but this is not always the case.
I’m only qualified to judge the quality of the computer science and math courses, but I found these to be quite good.
You might consider using Saylor for older students who are considering college-level work. These courses might also be easily adaptable for use in a coop setting.
Coursera
Coursera is an online university program that includes courses from dozens of major universities. Coursera focuses on college-level courses that have a specific beginning and end date. They are a little more directed than some of the other online resources. The topics are generally more advanced, but there are some very interesting options for students who are interested in them. Most of the courses are directed by a professor who teaches the course for a major university. The courses are generally free.
Udemy
Udemy is a marketplace for any kind of instruction. Courses cover a wide range of topics, and vary in cost from free to a couple hundred dollars. Most of the courses are video-based, with some supplemental information. Generally these are not college courses, but courses on specific skills or ideas. The quality and length of the courses varies by instructor, but the general quality seems quite impressive. (As an aside, I happen to be developing a course that introduces web development, mobile development, and programming by teaching game programming.) I hope to have this course live on Udemy soon, so watch for it...
Other resources
There are a number of other great places to get online instruction. If you have an iPad or iPhone, take a look at the iTunesU app. This provides links to hundreds of wonderful online courses you can watch for free.
Many university programs now post courses online and allow anyone in the community to view them. You can see some of my own courses at http://de.cs.iupui.edu/
There’s a very impressive MOOC directory available at www.MOOCS.co. This site lists only free MOOCs. This looks like it might become a good repository for MOOC information. It has an interesting k12 section, but so far this only includes udemy and khan academy.
As always, it’s best for parents to be involved with any Internet activity, as some of these courses are intended for adult audiences. Still, there’s a lot of really wonderful material out there if you’re willing to look for it.
Best to you and your family as you investigate this wonderful growing area...