I mentioned the Coursera course that I was enrolled in --
California Institute of the Arts
Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers
This is proving to be a wonderful experience -- and far more interesting and I suspect brain-buidling than Luminosity games. The professor is excellent, the exercises fun and interesting, the interaction between the global community rather amazing.
MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses. Although there has been access to free online courses on the Internet for years, the quality and quantity of courses has changed. Access to free courses has allowed students to obtain a level of education that many only could dream of in the past. This has changed the face of education. In The New York Times article Instruction for Masses Knocked Down Campus Walls, author Tamar Lewin stated, “in the past few months hundreds of thousands of motivated students around the world who lack access to elite universities have been embracing them as a path toward sophisticated skills and high-paying jobs, without paying tuition or collecting a college degree.”
If you have not yet explored the free or very inexpensive college level and professional development courses that are available as MOOCs (Massive Open Onlive Courses), I suggest you take a look.
There are several providers: Coursera, EdX and Udemy are some of the major ones, but many universities are also offering their own courses. Udemy lets anyone write and publish a course and charge whatever fee they wish (some are expensive, others free); Coursera and EdX are totally free, and the providers are academic partners (former Yale president Richard Levin just took the helm of Coursera, a good sign that these are just going to get better.) No, you don't get credit, per se, though if it is important to you and your career path (it isn't to me) you can pay a small fee to get a certificate of completion.
Here are just a few of the courses that I found today on some of these sites.
Art History Prehistory to the Renaissance on Udemy for $25
Figure Drawing from Life using the Reilly Technique, on Udemy for free
The Art and Architecture of Ancient Nubia, on Coursera for free, from Emory University
Tangible Things, Discovering History through Artworks, Artifacts, Scientific Specimens and the Stuff Around You at EdX from Harvard, free
MIT publishes an incredible amount of their courses online with videos and print material. Just a couple of courses that caught my eye: Sensing Place, Photography as Inquiry.; Introduction to Visual Media, Early Music--- generally these are course materials, without any grading, free back or actual requirements, but the teaching materials are there!
Open Yale Courses have video and audio materials on YouTube and iTunes and downloadable course materials. Roman Architecture is one course currently available. Listening to Music is a basic music course also at Open Yale.
I guess I know how my studio TV time will be spent now! I like having the sound and motion going when I am taking on repetitive tasks, hand stitching, printing, etc. It kind of keeps my critical inner witch at bay. MOOCs are a sure step up from Project Runway, believe me!