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Online learning
I started a few new online courses on Coursera last week. The first one was the Ancient Greece class and it’s been rather slow-going. I signed up for this mostly for the benefit of Lego Lover but I rather doubt we’ll be there for the long-haul. The lecture videos aren’t particularly engaging and it feels like forever to finish just one. I also think some of the reading is going to be a bit much for Lego Lover so it might be an early casualty. The second course is History of Rock and Roll Part 1. I enrolled in this a while ago, then unenrolled and decided to try again after all since the Scientist is doing this course this time. That one is quite engaging and relatively light work so far. I’ll know a bit more once the quiz is released. There’s also Dino 101, which is completely for the sake of Lego Lover. So far, this has been the best course suited to Lego Lover. It’s not particularly complex, easy enough to be handled even by upper primary students. It’s quite engaging so Lego Lover and I are both enjoying it considerably. He really loves the subject matter too, which is funny because he didn’t when he was much younger like many of his same-aged peers.
The big challenge right now is the class on Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. I have never gotten into poetry in any way but I’ve always felt that I must be missing something since so many people love poetry. I don’t know that this particular set of poetry is the best starting point but I thought it would be good to challenge my notions of poetry and see if I can gather up some better appreciation and perhaps enjoyment of it. This first week has been about Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. I am familiar with both but doubt I’ve read either of these poets in the past so knew nothing about either. I’ve only watched the videos about Dickinson so far but it’s been interesting how they can spend half an hour discussing such a short poem. I won’t say this is without merit but I guess that blows me away to some extent. One thing I did after watching the discussions of her poems was to go and read about her, which might be been more practical beforehand as it puts her work in better perspective.
I ended up dropping out of the Modern and Postmodern class that was so philosophy-based as I got behind on the reading and then the video lectures so there didn’t seem much point carrying on. Perhaps I will make attempts at reading on my own and try the class on its next offering. Assuming something else doesn’t catch my attention. At the very least it go my mind working in ways it hasn’t for years. Not even when I was back in school to do my masters in library and information science….
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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.