This week, I’ll be taking a look at how different free-learning alternatives deal with the five most crucial components of a formal educational experience, including: Lectures Homework Reading Discussion Assessment While this discussion will include general observations about each of these elements, I will also use some of the classes I’m enrolled in to illustrate […]
Degree of Freedom Lineup at HuffPo
You can check out my latest Degree of Freedom write up at Huffington Post.
Questions and Communication
I’ve received a number of questions, both in the comments section and through the Contact form, and while it’s still manageable to do so, I’m going to try to reserve time on Fridays to answer as many of these as I can. The first one came from commenter Steve who wondered if I will be […]
Challenges
Today, I wanted to discuss the major challenges I expect for this project. And tomorrow, I plan to wrap up the week by answering your questions and reviewing the ways you can follow along with the Degree of Freedom experiment. Regarding challenges trying to learn the equivalent of a liberal arts BA in twelve months […]
MOOC vs. iTunes: Auditing vs. “Taking” Classes
In a traditional college setting, there is a distinction between taking a class (which includes fulfilling all course requirements) and simply auditing it (i.e., just sitting through the lectures). In the world of MOOCs and other free online classes, however, this difference is not so clear. For most “brick-and-mortar” (and even online) degree-granting colleges and […]