On Online Courses

Relevant to the previous post I reblogged about “Coursera.”

As someone who’s interested in how online courses could shape education now and in the future, I’ve been noticing that while there’s actually many resources out there (like Khan Academy, Coursera, online colleges), they are mostly structured online courses that are best for formulaic subjects such as mathematics. There is an obvious lack of resources with subjects relating to the arts — anything that requires creativity. Granted, it isn’t actually the best environment for things such as music, but I would love to see more educational material for it. Creativity, of course, is something you can’t just “teach,” but it can certainly be fostered.

In terms of educational resources for arts, I’m not talking just about dry textbook things with theoretical musical approaches, I’m talking about a place that’s hands-on with it. There certainly are youtube videos, like “How to do so-and-so in DAW,” but that’s not exactly a structured course, more of a guide.Then again, once you’ve built a certain foundation, what’s built off of it is what counts. It would be very interesting to see how and if musical material can be taught through the internet. (And I’m sure that it can, considering so much of the self taught musicians I’ve seen. And maybe myself, as an example.)