Time sure flew. Not only have I completed the first week of my Coursera MOOC but I also just completed week #2! (If you missed the first post about the MOOC I’m taking, you can find it here)
Halfway through this little course, here’s a bit about my experience thus far:
At the beginning of lesson #1 there was a short, well-produced overview video about the class where the instructor explained the course, introduced the researchers on this project and discussed the assignments.
Then for the class itself, there were 3 15-20 minute videos that made up the lesson. I thought it was nice having several shorter videos rather than one long one. In addition to the streaming video, there’s an option for slideshow so you can just page through the slides (which is very helpful when trying to find a specific answer to a quiz question – trust me!), transcript which I think would be very helpful if English isn’t your first language, and a place to download the video.
There’s also a little speed button that I just discovered today so the videos can be played in real time, slowed down or speeded up. In playing with it I found 150% a bit too fast but 125% didn’t pose any difficulties for my ear and so did most of this lesson at the slightly faster speed.
On the discussion board there’s been a lot of chatter about various components of the course. People are recommending resources, asking questions and even challenging some of the statements. The instructors do pop in every so often to comment and respond so they’re obviously on top of what’s going on. Also, since this course is about China and we have a lot of Chinese speakers, they’ve been keeping a log of terms in both pinyin and characters – ie. jinshi (進士) – as a very helpful reference. And, since the text recommended for this week’s reading is only available in Chinese, there’s a group crowd-sourcing a summary translation into English which I think is pretty cool!
The last section is the dreaded ‘Assignments’ – which in my course means quizzes. One of the veteran Coursera students in the class pointed out that it’s best to take the quiz as soon as you finish the lectures so the materials are as fresh as possible – sound advice. There is a bit of a kerfuffle this week over what I agree is an oddly worded question. Depending on how you read it, you could have two different answers. So, as I was drinking coffee and stressing over which was the correct interpretation it suddenly struck me that a) my GPA won’t suffer if I get this one wrong b) the whole point of doing this is to learn something and I’m accomplishing that no matter what and c) I only need 60% to pass. So, I went with my first thought – we’ll see how that works out.
Overall, I’m very pleased with Coursera and how the class is going. The interface is easy to use, the course is interesting, and you sure can’t beat the price! Oh, and I did get 100% of the first week’s quiz.