MOOC obsessed
A local homeschooling connection posted a link to Coursera, which hosts a number of massive open online  courses, on Facebook a while back. I had a look at it at the time and forgot about it for a long while. A few days ago she posted again about how she and her daughter were doing this course on the science of gastronomy and describing what it was like so far. I went back to look and was so hooked that I signed up for the course right away even though it was hours until the first assignments were due to be finished. Even the Scientist got hooked and joined me watching the video lectures and doing the assignments that night. There are four more weeks worth of classes ahead and I look forward to doing those weeks.
I perused over course offerings there and discovered a class called Maps and the Geospatial Revolution. I thought perhaps this would be of interest to Lego Lover and he did find the concept of interest. I signed up for that one and I am doing the course myself but will use the course materials to work with Lego Lover. This is the kind of ideal stuff to use with him for our homeschooling program. If I am taking the course, I can use the information and adapt to his needs without any requirement that he be directly involved. So far Lego Lover hasn’t been involved in any way but I must admit the course is turning out to be quite interesting to me by itself. I’m looking forward to his involvement with what I am doing and if he opts out at any point, I can carry on without him.
There are a bunch of other courses that I found interesting, many which I could use with Lego Lover, and many for my own enjoyment. Further research shows a number of these MOOCs are out there with varying levels of involvement required. It makes me want to lots of courses so it’s a matter of restraint on overdoing things. I’ve added a course on modern and contemporary American poetry for later this year. I’ve not been that interested in poetry but though this might be a gateway if it works out well. If not, at least I tried it out.
