On June 30th, Coursera plans to wind down its old e‑learning platform. And according to this email the company sent around, any “courses and course materials on [that] old platform will no longer be accessible.” Concerned that dozens of older MOOCs could be lost, some have called this move a form of “cultural vandalism.” Others, like the good folks at Class Central, have created a very thorough and handy guide that will show you how to save the course materials (videos, slides, transcripts, etc.) before the June 30th deadline. You’re on notice. Start reading the guide and thank Dhawal Shah for putting it together.
For a list of MOOCs starting in the second half of June, click here.
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Not since the sixties and seventies, with the black power movement, flowering of Afrocentric scholarship, and debut of Alex Haley’s Roots, novel and mini-series, has there been so much popular interest in the history of slavery. We have seen Roots remade; award-winning books like Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told climb bestseller lists; and The Freedman’s Bureau Project’s digitization of 1.5 million slavery-era documents gives citizen-scholars the tools to research the history on their own.
In addition to these developments, Slate magazine has designed a multipart, multimedia course, “The History of American Slavery,” as part of its online educational initiative, “Slate Academy.” Hosted by Slate’s Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion and featuring guest historians like Baptist, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Annette Gordon-Reed, Eric Foner and more, this thorough survey consists of a nine-part podcast, with copious supplementary essays, book excerpts, and other resources drawing on primary documents and artifacts. One supplement, the animation above, shows us the “The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes.”
Visualizing 315 years—“from the trade’s beginning in the 16th century to its conclusion in the 19th”—the animation displays slave ships as increasing numbers of black dots zipping across the Atlantic to the Americas from the African coasts. The dots “also correspond to the size of each voyage. The larger the dot, the more enslaved people on board.” The Youtube video above provides only a partial representation of this impressive graphic. The full animation at Slate allows users to pause, click on individual dots, and get detailed information, when available, about the name of the ship, number of enslaved people transported, and points of origin and entry in the New World.
In all, we see animated “more than 20,000 voyages catalogued in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.” And though we typically, with typical U.S. solipsism, think of American slavery as a mostly North American phenomenon, the truth is quite the contrary:
Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747—less than 4 percent of the total—came to North America. This was dwarfed by the 1.3 million brought to Spanish Central America, the 4 million brought to British, French, Dutch, and Danish holdings in the Caribbean, and the 4.8 million brought to Brazil.
Early slave expeditions were conducted by the Spanish and Portuguese. “In the 1700s,” writes Bouie, “Spanish transport diminishes and is replaced (and exceeded) by British, French, Dutch, and—by the end of the century—American activity. This hundred years—from approximately 1725 to 1825—is also the high-water mark of the slave trade, as Europeans send more than 7.2 million people to forced labor, disease and death in the New World.” Surprisingly, Portugal remained one of the leading nations among enslavers for most of the slave-trade’s history.
The animation and short explanatory essay by Bouie show us the staggering historical scope of the immensely profitable and profoundly inhumane enterprise that shaped not only the United States, but also—in many ways more so—Central and South America and the Caribbean. There is no history of the Americas, and no growth of many of the colonies into wealthy, world-historical nations, without slavery, nor can the wealth of Europe be in any way divorced from the profits of the slave trade and slave industry. Bouie and Onion explain in the short video above why they decided to produce the course.
For a sense of how historians’ and the public’s understanding of slavery have changed over many decades—for all kinds of ideological reasons—read this excerpt from Baptist’s groundbreaking book. As he says in an interview with Salon, most histories and recreations of the period of enslavement attempt to hide the facts: “The resistance to reckoning with the role of slavery in the trajectory that makes the U.S. the most powerful nation on earth, that’s real; that’s very, very deep…. Whatever we say about the role of the U.S. in global history, it’s absolutely clear to me that slavery is essential to the rise of U.S. power.” Slate’s series goes a long way toward telling us the true history of slavery, from the mouths of writers and scholars who engage with it daily.
Like everything else these days, education has become a 24/7 affair. Yes, things are slowing down on college campuses this summer. But, on the internet, it’s full steam ahead. This June alone, over 300 free MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are getting underway. They’re all neatly catalogued by the education web site Class Central, which also tracks the most popular MOOCS offered each month. What’s hot in June? Find the top 10 below. And don’t hesitate to enroll in any of the courses. They’re all free.
Personal Finance Planning Purdue University via edX Manage your money more effectively by learning practical solutions to key investment, credit, insurance and retirement questions. Bookmark | Next Session : 15th Jun, 2016
Nutrition and Health: Food Safety Wageningen University via edX Learn about bacteria, pesticides and health hazards present in food. Bookmark | Next Session : 1st Jun, 2016
Islam Through Its Scriptures Harvard University via edX Learn about the Quran, the central sacred text of Islam, through an exploration of the rich diversity of roles and interpretations in Muslim societies. Bookmark | Next Session : 1st Jun, 2016
History of Graphic Design California Institute of the Arts via Coursera This condensed survey course focuses on four major areas of design and their history: Typography, Image-Making, Interactive Media, and Branding. Bookmark | Next Session : 20th Jun, 2016
Big Data: Data Visualisation Queensland University of Technology via FutureLearn Data visualisation is vital in bridging the gap between data and decisions. Discover the methods, tools and processes involved. Bookmark | Next Session : 27th Jun, 2016
Microeconomics: When Markets Fail University of Pennsylvania via Coursera Perfect markets achieve efficiency: maximizing total surplus generated. But real markets are imperfect. This course will explore a set of market imperfections to understand why they fail and to explore possible remedies, including antitrust policy, regulation, and government intervention. Bookmark | Next Session : 6th Jun, 2016
Single Page Web Applications with AngularJS Johns Hopkins University via Coursera Do you want to write powerful, maintainable, and testable front end applications faster and with less code? Then consider joining this course to gain skills in one of the most popular Single Page Application (SPA) frameworks today, AngularJS Bookmark | Next Session : 20th Jun, 2016
Machine Learning: Clustering & Retrieval University of Washington via Coursera A reader is interested in a specific news article and you want to find similar articles to recommend. What is the right notion of similarity? Moreover, what if there are millions of other documents? Bookmark | Next Session : 15th Jun, 2016
Introduction to Engineering University of Texas at Arlington via edX The application of knowledge to design and build devices, systems, materials and processes in engineering. Bookmark | Next Session : 8th, Jun, 2016
Social Norms, Social Change University of Pennsylvania via Coursera This is a course on social norms, the rules that glue societies together. It teaches how to diagnose social norms, and how to distinguish them from other social constructs, like customs or conventions. Bookmark | Next Session : 20th Jun, 2016
For a complete list of courses starting in June, click here.
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When MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) first started making headlines in 2012, we read stories about thousands of people enrolling in courses on Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science. Since then, the MOOC providers have doubled down on promoting technical and utilitarian courses–courses that will get students jobs, and eventually make the MOOC providers money. Peruse this list of the 50 most popular MOOCs of all time, and you’ll seen plenty of market-oriented courses topping the list–e.g., #4) Introduction to Finance #3) R Programming, and #2) Machine Learning. But what’s the most popular course? Something not entirely career-focused. Something not immediately monetizable. Something that can benefit us all. Ladies and gentlemen, the #1 course, Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects.
Created by Barbara Oakley (University of Oakland) and Terry Sejnowski (the Salk Institute), Learning How to Learn uses neuroscience to fine-tune our ability to learn. And the course is being offered again, starting today, through Coursera. You can enroll here (the course is free) and read what ground the course will cover below.
This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects. Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for: turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets. If you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide.
This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects. Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for: turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets. If you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide.
To find reviews of Learning How to Learn,visit Class Central. To keep tabs on new MOOCs, see our list of MOOCs from Great Universities.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
Coinciding with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the University of Warwick (located just 16 miles from Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon) has teamed up with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to run a free 10-week online course starting on April 18th. The course explores not only the great writer’s work, but his world too — you might even say it’s such stuff as dreams are made on.
Sir Jonathan Bate will introduce a new play each week, examining it in relation to cultural themes and treasures from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s archives. In fact this course offers unprecedented access to the famous vaults of the Trust where thousands of rare artefacts are kept.
Here’s a quick run through of what each week covers:
Week 1: An Introduction to Shakespeare and his World
We all have our favorite film critics. Maybe we gravitated to them because they write well or because they share our tastes, but the very best of them — the critics we read even on genres and directors we otherwise wouldn’t care about — make us see movies in a new way. Specifically, they make us see them the way they do, and the point of view of a professional critic steeped in cinema history and theory (not to mention the thousands and thousands of hours of actual film they’ve watched) will always have a richness that the casual moviegoer can’t hope to enjoy on his/her own.
Unless, of course, you take The Film Experience, a 23-lecture course from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And you don’t need to enroll at MIT — or even show up and surreptitiously audit — to take it, since the school has made those lectures, their accompanying materials, and even supplemental media (just like the DVD extras that have inspired a generation of cinephiles) free on their OpenCourseWare site. They’ve also assembled the videos, starring MIT’s Film and Media Studies program founding professor David Thorburn, into a single Youtube playlist.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
If I had my way, more academics would care about teaching beyond the walls of the academy. They’d teach to a broader public and consider ways to make their material more engaging, if not inspiring, to new audiences. You can find examples out there of teachers who are doing it right. The heirs of Carl Sagan–Brian Greene, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye–know how to light a spark and make their material come alive on TV and YouTube. How they do this is not exactly a mystery, not after M.I.T. posted online a course called “Becoming the Next Bill Nye: Writing and Hosting the Educational Show.”
Taught at M.I.T. over a month-long period, Becoming the Next Bill Nye was designed to teach students video production techniques that would help them “to engagingly convey [their] passions for science, technology, engineering, and/or math.” By the end of the course, they’d know how to script and host a 5‑minute YouTube show.
Two years ago, World Science U debuted on the net, promising to bring free science courses to anyone, from high schoolers to retirees. (We wrote about it here.) The courses would be taught by the top scientists in their fields, featuring lectures, animations, interactive exercises, feedback, and even virtual office hours. At the time, however, Brian Greene’s project to bring the latest in research on string theory, particle physics, dark energy, relativity and more featured only two courses.
Since then, World Science U has taken off. It now offers “Science Unplugged,” a series of short videos that offer answers to layperson questions about science; “Master Classes” which are short classes about various subjects (mostly in physics) that take a few hours to complete; and “University Courses” which take eight to ten weeks to complete and are designed for the more advanced learner. These latter two offerings offer certificates upon completion.
Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.
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