Yay, I signed up for
Introduction to Logic

This site is really amazing, revolutionary.

HughMcB wrote:I'm starting the Greek and Roman Mythology today. Nice backdrop professor!

Anyone else doing this?

I'm on for this and the introduction to logic course.

I did the first week's lectures yesterday (Greek and Roman Mythology). It's reasonably good, a little slow to start but looked more promising as it went on. Won't know more conclusively till the week goes on.

Has the course on Logic started? Is it any good?

HughMcB wrote:I did the first week's lectures yesterday (Greek and Roman Mythology). It's reasonably good, a little slow to start but looked more promising as it went on. Won't know more conclusively till the week goes on.

Has the course on Logic started? Is it any good?

Logic has started, but due to my poor connection speed I've had the videos downloading over night. About to head into work and I'll be starting on them when I get back tonight.

Report back when you get it up and running!

I finished the first week of the logic course and it's just the intro. Basic stuff, but just a little challenging to make me feel smart yet learning a little and I'm very interested to see where it's going.
I got 1 wrong out of all of the sets of test questions. I have no background in algebra so maybe that's why I had a touch of trouble.

HughMcB wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:It'll be grand if we can all share our experiences - might encourage others to get involved too!

Let's start a thread up when the course opens!

Fo' shizzle.

It's started - anyone want to open a thread on it? I'd say it should be kept in Education, and any Creationist bollockery should be kept out of it.


Edit: Buggrit - I just opened one instead of farting about:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/educa ... 35164.html

I'm going to do a few of these in my uni break to get a taste of some electives and maybe improve on some mathematics/statistics.

reisender wrote:Yay, I signed up for
Introduction to Logic

How is it going? This is one I am thinking of trying out.

Yuck. Statistics.

Interesting article in the observer today:

Do online courses spell the end for the traditional university?

...including an interview on coursera's Genetics and Evolution course with a coursera enthusiast from the RDF website (and here?) who is called Richard Herring (no not that one)

Cool site. I'm doing the 'Introduction to Computer Science' course on Udacity at the moment but I've bookmarked Coursera to keep an eye out for something I might like.

Yeah I have to say that I think udacity's courses are far better presented than the coursera ones I've done/am doing. The main thing going for coursera is that their timetabled approach forces me to pull my finger out of my arse and actually do the work every week to keep up with the rest of the class.

Bookmarking.


This looks great!

GenesForLife wrote:Just posting to let you all know about Coursera, a collaboration that provides free online courses from several top American universities. They've got one on vaccines run by Paul Offit, which is starting tomorrow, and one on Genomics and Genome technology coming up at some point in the future.

If you are interested in these areas it could be a good investment of time and mental effort.

https://www.coursera.org/

Wonderful thank you for starting the thread.

I've taken 3 so far. The quality varies greatly. One of the courses even had a premium stream (ie. if you pay money then you can access better, more user-friendly materal). In another course, there were silly errors in the coursera software itself. The third course has been fantastic and is really well thought out.

I find it interesting how some people in the discussion forums of a couple of courses I have taken have gone out of their way to defend some of the poor quality because the course is "free". I'm curious what people here think about it. When it comes to free eduction is it wrong to complain about poor quality?

Yeah I signed up for a course called something like Science & Superheroes... and un-enrolled before I was halfway through the first video: it was chronic.

The only reason to complain about it is if you want to give feedback. For me, that course was so dire it wasn't even worth taking the time to give feedback.

Signing up for the Beginners Guide to Irrational Behavior with Dan Ariely who is one of my favorite economists and won the Nobel in medicine a few years back. Its only 6 weeks and statement of accomplishment(?) is given for those who complete it. Probably won't sign up for anything else until I get this first one under my belt as I don't what to expect workload wise.
https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon

Question for those who have taken the courses; are the reading materials provided or am I expected to buy these books? In this case he lists three of his own texts. I see some of these other courses have textbooks listed for which I wouldn't have money for atm.

GT2211 wrote:Signing up for the Beginners Guide to Irrational Behavior with Dan Ariely who is one of my favorite economists and won the Nobel in medicine a few years back. Its only 6 weeks and statement of accomplishment(?) is given for those who complete it. Probably won't sign up for anything else until I get this first one under my belt as I don't what to expect workload wise.
https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon

The "statement of accomplishment" is pretty much useless, btw. For one thing, on standard accounts, they don't have a way to check if you are cheating or not. Even with the premium "signature track" statements (where they attempt to verify your RL identity), they are only useful if the prospective employer decides to give them credit.

It's important to remember that MOOC courses such as these are still in their infancy and are mainly offered for the value of learning for learning's sake rather than for credit. On one course I'm currently taking, Internet History, Technology, and Security, the assessment structure is set up so that it is pretty hard to fail the course. But there is a lot of extra resources, and topics that spin off of the main lectures. It's great. I personally learn better in these no pressure environments.

Question for those who have taken the courses; are the reading materials provided or am I expected to buy these books? In this case he lists three of his own texts. I see some of these other courses have textbooks listed for which I wouldn't have money for atm.

Reading material of some sort should be provided. Textbooks and other supplementary books are not generally required. At least not in any of the courses I have been in.

Just completed Health for All sponsored by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I had not heard of Alma-Ata .....

I'm visiting a friend of mine in a couple of month's in Galway for the weekend and he's not convinced on Climate Change, mainly because he has a denialist friend filling his head with nonsense. I'm determined to learn the crap out of Climate Science between now and then with the aim to totally destroy this friend. I've decided to start with a little course on the topic.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/global-w ... ode=signup

I'm totes shallow.