Pluto System, Hubble Space Telescope. Image credit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JPL/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), HST Pluto Companion Search Team
I’m the first to admit I don’t understand the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) model of education. I can’t figure out how companies like Coursera make money by offering free courses and I can’t see how anyone thinks they MOOCs can replace a four-year university education. I’m an advocate of online education for some courses, in some forms, but not for an entire college education. But no one asked me, and as long as the instructor gets paid and the student gets some intellectual benefit, I have no complaints. I’ve taken one MOOC (on Thomas Jefferson, because hey, UVa), learned a lot, and found it a pretty good use of my spare time.
The preceding paragraph was just a warm-up for the real purpose of this post: to remind you that you’re running out of time to register for Mike Brown‘s free online course, The Science of the Solar System. Judging only from the intro video, it looks like it’s going to be a fun class. I saw Mike give a talk at NEAF last year and enjoyed it. His material was pitched at a good level, assuming his audience had enough knowledge to follow him, but was not made up of astrophysicists.
Plus, he was nice enough to autograph a copy of his book for my wife.
Also coming up is a MOOC on the technology of astronomy (AstroTech: The Science and Technology behind Discovery). I think I’ll be enrolled in this one. My research deals with Early Modern “astrotech” and it might be fun to look at a more contemporary perspective.
