1/20/15

Year of Gratitude - Day 20 - Free education from MOOCs and Podcasts

Near the end of 2013, I actually rattled off a month of gratitude. One of those was about how podcasts and MOOCs were like free education. I still stand by that. Here's the deal: higher education isn't the answer to everything. Not going to college isn't the answer to everything. Self-learning isn't the answer to everything. There is no one-size-fits-all situation when it comes to education. People learn at very different speeds and through different styles. When I was a kid, teachers either loved me because they knew they could challenge me or hated me because they couldn't.

When you have something like free library databases, the Internet, podcasts galore or these MOOCs, you have a lot of ways to self-learn at your own speed. The catch is that YOU and only YOU are responsible to complete the lessons. That's the thing, most people won't discipline themselves to stay with an entire free course. I'm sure many of these companies count on it, but isn't that something: the world is there for the taking, free in all it's glory from the MOOCs and Kahn Academy's of the world, and most people will never take advantage.

I hope to start showing my gratitude in a more active way by completing my own self guided course soon.

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