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[Heron TSG]

That could actually be pretty useful. I was thinking about taking a Statistics class from there. I figure that even if the course itself counts for nothing, the knowledge itself should help me get into a Statistics II class.

[Chaoswizkid]

Bumping this due to the Colbert Report recently having an MIT professor on air sponsoring edX. The professor reported that the program has at least one student from every country in the world, and are dedicated to free education because educating the world and as many people as possible will make the world a better place.

The homepage of the website https://www.edx.org/ has a link to that episode.

Also bumping because, at only a handful of pages for this thread, a lot of people may not be aware of what an amazing opportunity this is.

[quinnr]

Going to watch this thread because it is filled with so much awesome. I didn't know there were other people out there who actually enjoyed learning!

[Sappho]

Damn it. Most of them are on itunes. I have, so far, managed to avoid ever putting that horrible thing on my computer. I am very strongly anti-itunes. And yet, I really want to listen to / watch some of these lectures which are not available in any other format. Is there any possibility of getting someone with itunes to download some lectures and share them with me as mp3? Or is it only possible to open the files with itunes? I would like to put some of the audio ones on my phone and listen to them on my hour-long journey to and from work (by public transport, don't worry, I'm not driving) but my phone can only play mp3 files. Am I out of luck?

[Aklyon]

Its not the files thats the problem, afaik iTunes downloads thing like everything else. YOu just need someoen to get iTunes to get them for you first, and maybe also need to convert them to mp3s, but thats not difficult.

[quinnr]

Damn it. Most of them are on itunes. I have, so far, managed to avoid ever putting that horrible thing on my computer. I am very strongly anti-itunes. And yet, I really want to listen to / watch some of these lectures which are not available in any other format. Is there any possibility of getting someone with itunes to download some lectures and share them with me as mp3? Or is it only possible to open the files with itunes? I would like to put some of the audio ones on my phone and listen to them on my hour-long journey to and from work (by public transport, don't worry, I'm not driving) but my phone can only play mp3 files. Am I out of luck?

A quick Google for the topic says that it should be possible: http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-Podcast-to-Mp3-File-With-Itunes

[Sappho]

I can convert to mp3 myself, that's not a problem. I just don't want to download itunes. Maybe I can get one of my local friends to do it... A few of them must owe me a favor or two and they use itunes anyway... Unless one of you guys wants to do it and post links here, for the benefit of all humanity. ; )

[quinnr]

I can convert to mp3 myself, that's not a problem. I just don't want to download itunes. Maybe I can get one of my local friends to do it... A few of them must owe me a favor or two and they use itunes anyway... Unless one of you guys wants to do it and post links here, for the benefit of all humanity. ; )

I don't have iTunes right now, either, or I would, sorry!

(And I think you might have to convert to MP3 within iTunes to send the files? I don't really know too much about how iTunes works, to be honest.)

[Chaoswizkid]

Can't you just go through the online course and download the podcast directly? I'd be surprised that they don't have direct downloads, considering everything else should be direct downloads.

[Sappho]

Can't you just go through the online course and download the podcast directly? I'd be surprised that they don't have direct downloads, considering everything else should be direct downloads.

The web site only lists links to itunes. There doesn't appear to be anyplace for direct downloads. I'll just make one of my friends do it probably. Thanks for the help guys!

[Il Palazzo]

A while ago, Physics Forum partnered with Educator.com, granting free 1-year membership to the latter for every member of PF. Joining PF is free, so if you're interested head to:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=703563
join the forum, and click the link in the above thread.

[scrdest]

My conviction that school education is ridiculously ineffective is being reinforced. I'm planning to devour those courses.

[Scoops Novel]

Yes

[Descan]

Signed up. :3 Could use it, it's my last year of high-school either way, and I'd rather it go one way than the other, ye ken?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At least at this school, I can't continue past 21. Ugh. I feel terrible whenever I think of how long it's taking me... x_x

[Eagleon]

Something that always bothered me about the format these places are presenting their courses in (at least on their surface interface), there's no information beyond course title/summary and instructor. You can't search within their syllabus. I'd love to see OpenCulture's list, but with tag clouds related to other course's text materials, so that you can see how they truly relate and depend on each other. In conventional education you have prerequisites and majors so that you don't run into walls of "WTF did he just say about what?". Am I insane for wanting this?

To expand further, imagine fitting prerequisites automatically by syllabus information. It would require more information from instructors on what concepts the course introduces, but if you followed it closely, in theory you wouldn't have nearly as much backtracking and review to handle students that had somehow failed to get introduced to obscure-graph-theory-concept-#47 in their obscure graph theory MOOC from Obscure University. If a course was too challenging, you could see exactly where you need to go next to get through it, because it would fit into two or three others. If it -didn't- fit, and there's something the professor is presenting as something that should already be known to the students, this could be treated like a bug to be patched in other courses, rather than a problem with the students.

Any interest in a site like this? I'd totally be up for fixing MOOCs instead of going back to school in meatspace like a chump (not really, but I can help some)