This past fall Stanford University began a bold experiment, offering 3 free online computer science classes in a new and intriguing format. Now the experiment continues, with 14 more courses planned for early 2012, available at the Coursera website.
Enrollment is free. Students watch short videos and take embedded quizzes. They post questions on a student bulletin board, and the staff answers the most popular questions. At the end the students who complete the homework and exams get a letter of completion signed by the course’s instructors. (Important caveat: you don’t get official Stanford University credit. For that, you still have to pay the big bucks.)
Here is an entertaining promo from computer science instructor and Google researcher Nick Parlante who will teach CS101, an introduction to computer science.
(Via OpenCulture.)
Related:
Stanford’s OpenClassroom now online
Two more free Stanford computer sci classes
Get a grade and a certificate from free Stanford AI course
