Many computers are purchased for the reason (excuse?) that "the kids need it for school". Once upon a time this meant that computers would enable students to print essays, produce fancy banners for Science Fair, or maybe even practice their multiplication tables. Now, however, for many people, the computer is their school. As well as being the worlds largest library, the internet is also it's largest classroom. Universities offer "long distance learning" on the internet. There are also many "general interest" courses available
Don Carpenter is an active member of the Bobcaygeon Seniors and the Kawartha Internet Users Group. For the last few years he has been "enrolled" at www.virtualu.com, taking one or two courses a year, on subjects ranging from genealogy to building a web page. When he first started, the courses were free. He now pays a nominal charge of $15 per course. Each "semester" he receives, by "regular mail", the new schedule and a synopsis of each course.
He says he spends about three hours a week on each course, but that time is at his convenience - no 8 o'clock classes at this school! Courses are usually from six to ten weeks long. Assignments are posted on the web page each weekend, and are due, by email, the following weekend. Students communicate with the teachers, and each other, through discussion groups. When you post a question on the main bulletin board, you may be invited to join a specific discussion group on that topic. Don finds these very helpful. As in any classroom, he often finds himself saying: "I'm glad you asked that!"
The assignments tend to be practical, useful, and fun. For example, in "Web searching, sleuthing and sifting", one assignment was to see how much "free stuff" you could find on the web. There were some more tedious exercises, such as evaluating various search engines, and learning boolean search techniques, but now Don can find just about anything he's looking for in a few seconds, without sifting through 40,000 "hits".
Courses are designed and taught by qualified people from around the world. The web site lists the teachers and their credentials. Some of the courses may be applied as credits to other institutions, such as finishing off a high-school diploma. But most students are there just to increase their skills and knowledge. After taking the genealogy course, Don was able to trace his family tree back to the early 1800's. He now has a contact in England who is searching back even further. "Without the course", he says, "I wouldn't have known where to start".
Perhaps the most intriguing course on Don's list is "Creating a Roadmap for the Rest of your Life". To illustrate to content of this course, Don emailed me a poem that began "Age is a quality of mind". Judging from the quality of Don's, he's in no danger of getting old yet!
