If you are not familiar with the term MOOC you should be. It is an acronym that stands for Massively Open Online Courseware and it is revolutionizing learning. This technology is being used by educational consortium such as Coursera, EdX, and others to offer free online college courses to the masses.

I am currently enrolled in Loudon Stearn’s Intro to Music Production offered through Coursera in conjunction with Berklee School of Music in Boston. It has been a wonderful experience so far. The course (as one would expect from Berklee) is well taught and gives me an opportunity to interact with students from all over the world.

Each week, the instructor assigns us to teach a lesson based on the course material, through a video or slide show, audio file or paper. Then we must assess the work of at least four of our fellow students. This is an excellent method to make the concepts our own and embed them in our memory.

The forums alone make the course worthwhile. Imagine, interacting with an international community of people who are interested in the same subject and who offer the benefit of their experience and research. Needless to say, I have learned more in the first week and a half than I’ve learned in years of buying books and searching forums on the web. I plan to use the MOOC as long as it is open and free.

You can check out Coursera here: https://www.coursera.org/