I’ve signed up for Jazz Appreciation with edX which starts tomorrow, I’m quite excited actually.

https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx-ut-8-01x-jazz-appreciation-1149

Anyone else had a go at these? I am wondering if I’ll stick at something that is a) free b) for all intents and purposes useless!

UK has something similair https://www.futurelearn.com/

Looks good so far

I’m doing a Coursera one, so far I’m pretty impressed with the production standards etc and the assessments are well thought out. It is useless from a qualifications point of view but they can help alongside normal studies or just from a personal interest point of view.

By way of a comparison I’m also a couple of months off finishing a distance learning degree through a UK university which is utter toss in comparison.

Brilliant. Just signed up for the Studio Production course with FutureLearn.

Thanks for the tip!

http://www.codecademy.com

I’ve done quite a few Coursera ones, probably started over 10 and finished 4 successfully.

The courses themselves are a bit hit and miss – of the 6 or so I haven’t finished, mostly it’s been due to the course itself, rather than personal failings – for example I started one statistics course but couldn’t handle the “children’s TV” style voice of the lecturer, quite a few courses aren’t quite what you expect (not necessarily the fault of the course), and more than one has been poorly prepared.

You do need to set aside a fair amount of time, Coursera at least tries to give you an idea of how many hours per week you’ll need, but if you find the material challenging (or they’ve simply got it wrong) you can easily find yourself doing twice as much. This has led me to drop out at least once, too. If you want to make a success of it I’d recommend getting the videos / lectures done before Thursday, leaving a full weekend to do any project work. You really do need to take them seriously! You should also make use of the course discussion forums, a lot of the time other students are having the same problems.

Nick – Member

I’ve signed up for Jazz Appreciation

Nice!!

I did an edx biochemistry one. Really enjoyed the first few lectures, learnt stuff, felt pleased. Then the assessment was stupidly hard and i didn’t have the time,to,keep,watching and re watching 8 hours of lectures and 2 hours of tutorial a week. Starting none through Leeds uni next month on abdominal anatomy, hopefully my prior knowledge here will help!