Sometimes I realise that I do lack some basic-background in my hobby. Well that is not strange as my education was economics and not electronics/computer science.
Therefore I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon edX. https://www.edx.org/
edX is an institution that is founded by Harvard University and the MIT to provide for free-open-source courses. Nowadays universities from all over the world are contributing and famous names from the industry expalin some technical details from their expertise.
Here is their statement to the world.
This weblog forces me to pursue all kinds of technical information. It is about electronics sure, but they have to be programmed. So it is also about Arduino Language (C++), Python, HTML and CSS, Javascript (delving into that), Wifi protocols.
And guess what: EDX covers them all with courses for free !!!
What no charges ???
Indeed. No charges !!!
You can follow the courses in 3 ways (and each gives you the same lessons):
- Just read them and further nothing
- Read them, participate in the quizzes, discussions and tests
- The same as above but aim for a certificate.
In the last case you do have to make a payment. edX charces 49,-- USD for a certificate. Mind you that is not a degree. It is a certificate that shows that you followed the course positively ended with a test.
Some courses are running at the time you visit the site. Some are not. You can also enroll for courses from the past and those that are not running at the moment. They are all archived and you can get access to the course and follow it. There is obviously no feedback from staff or other students in this case and you can not get a certificate for courses that are not active.
So if you are interested in delving deeper into your hobby, have a look at the edX website and search for courses.
On the top of the webpage https://www.edx.org/ there is a search function. I searched for several points of interest to me like: C++ and Electronics. This is what they have on offer:
And here are the results for Electronics.
Loads of courses in all kinds of grades.
APP Inventor
Maybe you know by now that I use MIT's App-Inventor often to devellop my own APP's for my smart phone. However App-Inventors website does not provide all the information I need for what I want to do. That means: searching the web.
EDX has 2 couses on APP-Inventor a beginners course and an advanced course.
So being modest as I am I started with the beginners version.
How does it work ?
No formal classes. You do everything at home in your own pace. All couses are only online available. That has some disadvatages (no live discussions with fellow students) . But it also has enormous advantages. You can follow the course in your own pace and from anywhere in the world.
The APP-Inventor course is split up in 6 weeks. EDX advise that you study 6 to 8 hour a week.
Each part let's you make an APP with a step by step explanation.
There are video's
And there are quizzes. Some easy like the one above and some really though.
And at the end of each lesson you have a real working APP and learned all kinds of techniques and get side-information.
I learned for example a lot about lossy and lossless compression techniques for photo's and I have learned how to put hidden information in a photo (like a note or secret instructions). This is the suff that spies like ;)
You can follow the course on your own pace. So if you need 3 days (or 1 day) for the lessons of week 1 just move on to the next weeks lessons as everything is available direct from the beginning.
If you need more as the 6 weeks, no problem either. Do it at your own pace. However if you are not ready with the lessons when the course has finished you can not apply for a certificate.
Next to that I indeed learned a lot about APP-Inventor and I am sure that I will follow some other courses also.
Besides it gave me the back-to-school feeling (except for all the lovely girls in my classes). It really was a lot of fun following the first course. So do yourself a favor and enroll and start learning something.
HIGLY RECOMMENDED.
And fun !!!
Till next time
Luc Volders
