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Ask HN: Courses like Coursera or Udemy but without the videos?

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Re: Ask HN: Courses like Coursera or Udemy but without the videos?

#51
I agree. The key reason is the need for the audience to be linear. That's what I'm addressing in the LMS I'm putting together for my company ;)

* Videos really do add a lot of value. But all video... makes it into a movie, despite exercises that can be done later, it is a movie experience.

* Videos create a personal touch and engagement with a user. That is valuable for a lot of people.

* Video in something technical lets others see workflow. I great example was for a beginner introduction to Spring where the instructor showed how to set getters and setters in Eclipse. Fantastic quick kill in terms of delivering something useful that wouldn't work in text.

* A lot of instructors don't like putting their face on the internet. They just don't.

* A combination of media all on one page is what I'm going for, and have mainly achieved. It does turn the page a bit long (of course assisted by sidebars) but text, video example, some interactive content, some links to resources be it citations, PDFs or other, work very well.

At least, for me.

And I'm doing this in a second language, Chinese. Nightmare, but really interesting. If you're in the LMS space and interested in getting in contact, email me at my QQ address in profile.

Re: Ask HN: Courses like Coursera or Udemy but without the videos?

#52
I totally agree with you. I was a video person up until a few days ago actually, when I bought React Indie Bundle (which came with 4 books and 3 Udemy courses). I found myself in a lot of situations where I could not watch videos but I could read (i.e. when I would be without my computer). So I became more of a book person. I'd read concepts, and see if I can apply the concepts when I get to my computer.

I found it to be a more enriching learning experience over copying what someone does on a video and only kind of learning it.

However, to answer your question, there are some free courses like the famous Rails Tutorial [1] and Learn X the Hard way [2].

[1]: https://www.railstutorial.org/book

[2]: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

Re: Ask HN: Courses like Coursera or Udemy but without the videos?

#57
Saylor Academy (disclosure: I work there), mentioned also by StrawberryPi on this thread, consists of free content curated into complete certificate courses. Video makes an appearance, but does not dominate.

We are a small non-profit focused on open education; everything is open to browse at https://learn.saylor.org so it's easy to get a sense of what one can expect from our courses.

Topics include CS, business, art history, bio, chem, physics, poli sci, economics, and a few others, comprising about 100 courses in all.

And for anyone who wants to hack on their own, we have about 200 inactive courses that can be forked on GitHub: https://legacy.saylor.org

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