Another course.
I must admit I really enjoyed this one and finished it early. Very early.
Unlike the other online courses I have taken, this one gave the whole 12 weeks of lectures and tests right at the start so that you can work at your own pace.
Had I not enjoyed it I wouldn't have whizzed through it so quickly.
I won't get results though until around Christmas.
I am having fun, mostly, with these online courses. I have found though, that they do vary in quality and quantity.
The first one I did, which was on archaeology, was very structured and very well thought out.
It was run by Brown University in Boston (which is an 'ivy league' uni) and now I have done others, it really showed.
The professor was excellent. The lectures were entertaining, the tests were quite challenging and the essays were rather intense. Plus, you had to submit a completed test and essay every week.
As it was my first go, I thought they were all like this.
They are not.
The next one was one on animal behaviour. I really thought I would love this. I did not.
It was run by an Aussie university and was, to be honest, something of a shambles.
There were lots of problems with the content of lectures, typos, notes, peer reviews (not my favourite) and even giving tests on subjects and information that hadn't yet been covered in the lectures.
Peer reviews........hmmmmmmm. They would be ok if everyone would just play nice. Unfortunately some people get carried away with power and are harsh or even quite nasty to each other.
I, personally, am not comfortable in marking someone else's work in a subject that I am only just learning about myself.
So, because we are doing this for fun and it is free, I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and mark them accordingly. Also, there are people doing these courses for whom English is not their first language so that should always be taken into account.
Only once did I take a mark off of someone and that was because he or she had done a rubbish essay that was only a few words when it was supposed to be at least 850 - very little effort at all really.
I then felt really bad about it.
This last one, paleobiology, was run by a Canadian uni.
It has been extremely informative. It is not just about dinosaurs but the actual biology of them. I found this so interesting. I thought, as probably most people do, that I knew a fair amount about them. It seems I knew nothing but I know a bloody sight more now.
I have already signed up for one starting in the new year. Astrobiology I think that is. I won't do another before then as I have a lot of Christmas prep to do in the run up and this takes up a lot of my time.
Speaking of which, I am going to cook the Christmas cake this afternoon. I have been preparing the cake tins. I make little ones to give as gifts too.
Preparing the cake tins takes longer than making the cake.
I expect I will do the pudding in a few days.
That will be another little job taken care of.
posted by Sue Banks @ 10:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home