It is about distance learning online. Many universities in the USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, and France are already participating in this project. The new form of education has become incredibly popular – for many disciplines, courses enroll up to 150,000 listeners. Foreign teaching attracts students not only because it is free; many simply strive to learn more in a specific field, and some are interested in foreign teaching methods. However, according to statistics, only 20% of students complete the course.
Typically, the standard training program consists of listening to lectures and completing test assignments for a grade. If you receive a low score, you can retake the assignment, but the number of attempts is limited. Such platforms are designed for students with various levels of knowledge – from novice to professional. Currently, economics, information technology, social sciences, medicine, and design are in high demand.
And although graduates of virtual learning are not entitled to a diploma, they do receive excellent knowledge and a document confirming attendance of lectures, which is sent by mail. And of course, a huge advantage of such training is that it is absolutely free.
From personal experience
Eduard Tregubov, received certificates on Coursera: 'I completed three courses on Coursera: 'Gamification' (about using game techniques in non-game situations, for example, to increase sales or motivate employees), 'Thinking Models' (about mathematical models that can be used to analyze situations in society), and 'Introduction to Operations Management' (about improving business processes). A big plus of these courses is that they provide modern knowledge, and classes are taught by renowned instructors.
But studying is difficult: there are many lectures, plus extra time is spent on tests that must be taken on time, and on working with a dictionary – because the study is in English. Therefore, to learn everything well, you need to devote at least a few hours a week to it (so you won't be able to study another course at the same time). Another difficulty is that since no one controls, success depends entirely on the level of self-organization.
A downside is also that certificates of course completion do not yet have great value. After all, no one is sure that the listener completed all assignments on their own.'
As the newspaper Segodnya writes, one of the most famous educational online projects with free courses is Coursera (www.coursera.org). It has become so popular that the American magazine Time gave it first place in its ranking of educational websites. Now 33 universities are participating in the project. Among them are leading alma maters such as Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Michigan, and the University of California. The user has a choice of more than 200 courses in English and French.
You can find a particular course by university and by thematic categories, of which there are about 20: computer, social and human sciences, medicine, economics, finance, mathematics, law, education. Next to the name of each course, the start date, duration (from 3 to 12 weeks), university, and lecturer's name are indicated. There is also a brief description and a video presentation from the teacher, thanks to which you can find out who this course is intended for and what it will cover.
To become a student, you need to register on the site, fill out a questionnaire, sign up for any courses you like, and then the user will receive a reminder about the start of classes. By the way, if you didn't manage to sign up in time, you can still join. However, you will have to quickly catch up on missed material, because the study takes place in real time. So, every week video lectures with subtitles, text notes, textbooks, homework, and tests are posted on the course page, which you need to complete in time to then pass the final exam. By the way, if something is unclear during the learning process, you can discuss it on the forum (there are quite a lot of Ukrainians and Russians there). And if in the end the student copes with everything, they will receive a certificate of course completion with the teacher's signature.
Virtual Harvard and MIT
The non-profit project edX (www.edx.org) was created by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, now on the site, in addition to these two universities, there are also courses from the University of California, Berkeley. For example, introduction to biology, artificial intelligence, ancient Greek literature, ethics and political philosophy, computer graphics, computer science and programming.
The full list of courses is placed on the main page of the site, and if you hover the cursor over any of them, you can immediately see a brief description and the start date. For example, in spring you can take a course on computer graphics.
By the way, despite the fact that some courses have already passed, their lectures are not deleted, but moved to an archive, from where they can be watched. It is convenient that they are divided into small thematic blocks with mini-tests, and each of them has a transcript. And if you click on any phrase in it, the video will move to that place. Also, for some courses, teachers upload textbooks. Some of them also organize live discussions during the course, through which you can directly communicate with the lecturer and other online students. And to get a certificate, you need to successfully pass all the tests.
Online Academy
Another non-profit project is Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org), which was created in 2006 by a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School, financier Salman Khan. Now the project site has about 4,000 videos on mathematics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, economics, animation, art history, medicine, finance, and history. Moreover, some of them are even translated into Russian and Ukrainian.
If we talk about the learning process, during the lecture, students do not see the instructor in the frame. Instead, before their eyes is a virtual board on which colorful diagrams, formulas, terms, and images appear. In addition to videos, the project's website has a so-called knowledge map: it contains 380 practical exercises in mathematics. For example, on determining cause-and-effect and logical connections. There are also problems in trigonometry, geometry, algebra (by the way, if a person does not know how to solve them, they can enable hints). For each correct answer, the user receives special points. The more points, the higher the level of knowledge and mastery.
Knowledge from Google
Among similar projects is Udacity (www.udacity.com), created by Sebastian Thrun – inventor and head of the innovative Google X Lab. Here there are courses in business, mathematics, computer science, and physics (with the difficulty level indicated next to each course). To start learning, you need to register, get access to a personal page, and enroll in the courses you like. After that, the user receives a list of all lectures, which can be watched in any order and studied for as long as desired. During the lesson, the instructor presents the material, drawing necessary images or formulas on the board, and conducts small tests. If they are not solved, the system will not allow the student to continue learning.
Courses for every taste
You can continue to gain online knowledge at www.canvas.net and venture-lab.org. Speaking of the first site, currently on the main page there are 30 courses, for example, about social networks, history of ancient civilizations, business ethics, US history, art. Each of them has a description and information about the instructor (sometimes even his Twitter page is indicated). It also indicates who the courses are intended for, whether you need to pay for additional materials, whether there will be a live chat with the lecturer, group work assignments, etc. By the way, the number of places in the course is limited, so you need to carefully follow the announcements to secure a spot. As for the second site, it hosts courses from Stanford University. To not miss their start, you can subscribe to notifications.