There's been quite a number of free online courses popping up recently, with the 3 major players being Coursera, Udacity, and edX. The amount and quality of content is really exciting. Not only am I personally able to take advantage of these programs but so are people all across the world, many of whom wouldn't otherwise have access to a university education.
Of the three, Udacity is definitely the most accessible. Not only does it have very entry level courses, but the lectures are split up in to very manageable chunks. On top of that the courses are self paced so there are no deadlines to worry about. And while all 3 platforms do it, Udacity really seems to shine in how it intersperses quizzes and exercises with the lectures. It keeps you very engaged with the courses. Almost all of Udacity courses are computer science courses however, so if computer science isn't what you're after then you're mostly out of luck.
Coursera material, from math to history, to art, varies widely. On the computer science end material seems a bit more rigorous and advanced than Udacity. This combined with the fact that courses are on a deadline makes things feel closer to an actual university. However one problem with Coursera, in my opinion, is the quality and quantity of what I guess could be called the homework. A lot of it seems far too simplistic and there isn't enough of it to really drive home the material. The programming projects though are not nearly so trivial so perhaps it all evens out.
edX, with its Circuits and Electronics course, seems closest of all to an actual university offering. There are both lectures and recitation videos, a full textbook is available, the homework is very appropriate, and there's even lab work in the form of a circuit simulator. Like Coursera, edX courses do have deadlines, so depending on your point of view this is one downside. Still, I have to say I'm very much enjoying their program and am definitely looking forward to edX's upcoming introduction to programming course. If it's going to be anything like the Abelson Sussman lectures it's going to be spectacular. The downside to edX is that it seems to suffer from a lack of content, but hopefully this will change in the future.
Considering the cost, namely free, all three sites are wonderful additions to the Internet. It's going to be a lot of fun watching them mature.
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