I put about 20 hours a week of my time over the past 6 months or so into MOOCs, primarily on Coursera. I've also used Khan Academy, edX, and some non-MOOC mate

I put about 20 hours a week of my time over the past 6 months or so into MOOCs, primarily on Coursera. I've also used Khan Academy, edX, and some non-MOOC materials like Code School in the past. I've definitely learned some great things, but it hasn't actually been the most efficient use of time. Rather than write a mini blog post here, I'll link to the actual blog post I recently wrote on it: http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-computer-science-study-through-moocs/ http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-com... To summarize the problems, the pre-requisites aren't always clear and are sometimes incomplete, the courses don't generally offer enough work that students can get help on, and set-up for the computing classes is often a huge pain. Finally, for me personally, the set pace is a serious detriment. I do much better if I can get the materials all at once and do 25% or more of a course in a weekend.