Friday 3 August 2012

Coursera - a Free Online Source of Courses


A friend and fellow blogger, Cassandra of ' Musings from an astronaut bound to Earth ', drew my attention to a free online writing course hosted by a site named 'Coursera'.

Now, never one for education as a teenager, I couldn't wait to leave my high school at the first opportunity. Granted, as I matured I did embark on various courses, either correspondence, night school, college, and finally university. Upon completion of my degree I vowed never to do another educational course again - ever!





Now here I am, promoting what? Another bloody educational course!

Okay, okay, no one twisted my arm to sign up, I was just wowed by the prospect of doing an online writing course on, 'Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World', for free and getting an educational credit for it. Why? Because I felt my writing lacks a certain something, and being mainly self-taught, I feel I need some direction and prodding in getting my mind (and my writing) to a better standard.

This time, I'm trying to be as relaxed about the course as possible, not sweating over it and trying to enjoy it, though you are required to read a written work once a week, dissect it, analyse it then write a very short essay about it, which is then marked anonymously by your peer group. Frightening stuff. And you really must be prepared for the good, the bad and the ugly when you get your feedback. But what the hey - it won't kill me.

As to how I'll cope with the odd shift pattern I am working currently - as an example, I'm on a 4am - 2pm shift tomorrow (4th August) - and the amount of reading, then writing, who knows? But I'm going to give it my best shot and see what happens. But I survived the April Blogger Challenge, so this should be a piece of cake... and no, you can't have any of it - cake, that is!

SO, if you're looking for a freebie, online course, please, please, please check the link. They have courses covering all sorts of subject matter - for FREE!

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