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> The "I could've learned that in a 5 min blog post" applies to basically anything and is condescending, arrogant, and does not warrant a discussion. You've co

> The "I could've learned that in a 5 min blog post" applies to basically anything and is condescending, arrogant, and does not warrant a discussion. You've completely missed the point and even failed to assume that the OP was well-meaning. The whole point of making it clear that the content of an online course can easily be learned by reading a blog post on the subject is to warn potential users that they risk wasting their precious time watching hours of videos consisting mostly of useless filler when spending 5 minutes reading a blog post would get you the same results. Frankly, this is a major and all too frequent problem witg MOOCs. Sadly, some courses are obvious exercises on how to stretch close to no content into hours of video. Personally I would hate to waste hours of my personal time unnecessarily, thus I appreciate these warnings.

Fnoord 8y ago
It makes no sense to make such a point about this specific course when it can be made about any course. Additionally, it is not possible to get on the same level via a 5 minute blog post compared to completing the course. Such counts for most if not all courses. > Personally I would hate to waste hours of my personal time unnecessarily, thus I appreciate these warnings. These warnings can be made with about any online content. It boils down to "I found it a waste of time"; data suggests the course was NOT a waste of time however. I appreciate such data over anecdotal evidence.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > It makes no sense to make such a point about this specific course when it can be made about any course. The point is that the assertion was made regarding this specific course but not any other. You're the one trying to put up a strawman by forcing the assertion to cover other courses, when nothing of the sort has been made. >Additionally, it is not possible to get on the same level via a 5 minute blog post compared to completing the course. Such counts for most if not all courses. I'm not familiar with the course, but I'm very familiar with other MOOCs from edx, coursera, and udemy. Based on my personal experience I can say that some courses, particularly technical courses, are indeed packed with useless filler content, and the same learning experience can be had by reading a small blog post covering the subject. This assertion is not uncommon, and unfortunately is a recurring problem with MOOCs.
  - elbear 8y ago
    Have you considered the background of a person talking about such a course? They might have read more than you about the topic, so they reasonably feel that the course brings nothing new. The problem is that it doesn't bring anything new to them, but they forget that other people don't have the same knowledge as they do. This is called the course of knowledge, where you forget what it was like before you knew something. What I can say about "Learning how to learn" specifically is that it covers how to encode information for better retention, what strategies to use to increase long-term recall (there are 3 and they're unintuitive), how to use chunking, how to build habits. Sure, you could cover these topics in 5 minutes, but you wouldn't do them justice. Especially for someone who's encountering them for the first time.

Fnoord 8y ago

It makes no sense to make such a point about this specific course when it can be made about any course. Additionally, it is not possible to get on the same level via a 5 minute blog post compared to completing the course. Such counts for most if not all courses. > Personally I would hate to waste hours of my personal time unnecessarily, thus I appreciate these warnings. These warnings can be made with about any online content. It boils down to "I found it a waste of time"; data suggests the course was NOT a waste of time however. I appreciate such data over anecdotal evidence.

geezerjay 8y ago
> It makes no sense to make such a point about this specific course when it can be made about any course. The point is that the assertion was made regarding this specific course but not any other. You're the one trying to put up a strawman by forcing the assertion to cover other courses, when nothing of the sort has been made. >Additionally, it is not possible to get on the same level via a 5 minute blog post compared to completing the course. Such counts for most if not all courses. I'm not familiar with the course, but I'm very familiar with other MOOCs from edx, coursera, and udemy. Based on my personal experience I can say that some courses, particularly technical courses, are indeed packed with useless filler content, and the same learning experience can be had by reading a small blog post covering the subject. This assertion is not uncommon, and unfortunately is a recurring problem with MOOCs.
- elbear 8y ago
  Have you considered the background of a person talking about such a course? They might have read more than you about the topic, so they reasonably feel that the course brings nothing new. The problem is that it doesn't bring anything new to them, but they forget that other people don't have the same knowledge as they do. This is called the course of knowledge, where you forget what it was like before you knew something. What I can say about "Learning how to learn" specifically is that it covers how to encode information for better retention, what strategies to use to increase long-term recall (there are 3 and they're unintuitive), how to use chunking, how to build habits. Sure, you could cover these topics in 5 minutes, but you wouldn't do them justice. Especially for someone who's encountering them for the first time.