This summer I signed up for
three MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) through
Coursera. Mostly this was
because those of us who work in higher education keep hearing that the MOOC’s
are our competition, so I was sizing it up. The courses I signed up for, though,
were courses I was very interested in. So how did they go?
First,
a little bit about Coursera. Coursera is probably the best-known of the large
MOOC-offering companies, and there seemed to be hundreds of courses for me to
choose from. There were basically three ways to “take” a course: I could just
hang out and do what I wanted; listen to as many lectures, do as many
assignments, etc. This would be free. Or, I could attempt to earn a
“certificate.” The certificate option requires the student to complete certain
specific requirements which differed from class to class. I chose this option
because I tend to be an achiever. For both of the courses I completed, I did
receive the certificate, in spite of five weeks of travel during the time I was
taking them. The third option is something called “Signature Track.” I didn’t
investigate this one too much, but I think it involves getting something more
like real college credit, but it involves some kind of cost.
OK, the
classes. I’ll start with the last one. I signed up for a course called History
of Rock Part II. Once it started, I realized that the lecturer was (sorry)
really boring. He basically just named the members of different rock bands.
They couldn’t actually play any music during the class time/lectures because of
the copyright issues. I did go to youtube and play some of the songs he
mentioned, but that didn’t seem to add much, since the professor just (again)
named songs rather than doing any in-depth analysis of them. I listened to the
first three lectures and decided to cut my losses at that point.
So now
on to the two classes I liked and completed. First, a little about the
mechanics of Coursera. The lectures are all on video. One of my classmates in
the first course mentioned software he had developed for use with the lectures
called
Video.not.es. It plays the lecture on the left side of the screen and
allows you to take notes on the right side of the screen and coordinates the
notes with the lectures. I got addicted to this software and used it for every
lecture in both courses. It was a godsend.
The
courses are primarily built around these lectures. In order to get the
certificate, both courses required me to take weekly quizzes over lecture and
reading material and earn a certain score (80% in one class; 60% in another).
Both classes also required written assignments. One required one 3-5 page
paper, and the other required 6 2-3 page papers. In both classes, the
assignments were scored by 5 other students in the class (and I would have to
score 5 other students for each assignment). As you can see here, the
requirements varied fairly widely, as did the amount of time spent on lectures
and outside reading.
The
first course I took was on Greek and Roman Mythology, taught by Professor
Peter Struck from the University of Pennsylvania. It was a 10 week course that
required us to completely read the
Odyssey,
Hesiod’s
Theogony, three
tragedies, and about half of the
Aeneid.
There were usually about ten lectures per week, each 12-20 minutes long.
Professor Struck was a great lecturer, and the course was definitely college
level (my paper was on the Freudian implications of the
Bacchae). I loved this class, took the lectures with me on a
cruise, and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing—and learned a lot!
The
second course, which will finish up next week, is an 8-week course called
Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets. This class is no less fascinating than the
mythology course, but it’s less “serious.” I don’t mean that it’s on a lower
level educationally, but it has less serious reading and fewer lectures. On the
other hand, it makes better use of the online format, I think. It has other
videos besides the lectures: demonstrations of archaeological techniques and
conversations with field archaeologists. This class has assignments every week,
but they are shorter and more fun than the mythology assignment. The class is
taught by Professor
Susan Alcock of Brown University and many guest helpers.
This class only has one or two lectures per week, but it always features
several demonstration videos. Each week also has four interviews with
archaeologists working in Abydos, Egypt, Montserrat, Petra, and the Mayan site
of El Zotz. The assignments are the best part of this class. We’ve had a chance
to do archaeological speculating from Google Earth, create online 3D models of
artifacts, and analyze our own garbage.
I loved
these courses and intend to continue to take Coursera courses whenever I have
time. I didn’t do much on the forums, which were optional in both classes, but
they appeared to be active. They do take a good amount of time if you want to
get the certificate. I would estimate that I spent 3-4 hours per week on each
one, more if you count the reading for the mythology class. I don’t know that
they are threats to my "real job" yet, though. They seem to serve a different purpose. They were
also much easier than a standard college course, so I don’t know that I would
take it too seriously if someone came to me wanting to receive “real” college
credit for one of these courses. I did learn a lot and have fun in both of
them, though, and I’m appreciative to Coursera for making this kind of learning
available! Both courses: 5/5*
