A Wealth of FREE Online Education Awaits Boomers

Reading my most recent Temple Review, the alumni magazine for Temple University where I received my journalism degree so many years ago, I came across this quote from Nancy Henkin, executive director, the Intergenerational Center at Temple. Talking about Boomers she said,

"Essentially, we have added a new stage to  life. But for most people it's not about what stage you are in; it's about the overall journey."

Henkin's statement made me think about my journey and the journey of others around me, and how technology has changed that journey.

As you all know, I went back to Pace University for my master's degree in publishing a few years ago, and with luck and perseverance, I will finish it this December. I took about half of my courses online, and I wrote about that experience previously. I know others who went back to school recently, life long academics who are returning to school to be retrained, to take up new interests, to do something different.

However there are Boomers out there who just want to learn as much as they can about different topics, who want to exercise their brains, and who aren't after a degree. Unlike the scarecrow in the Wizard of OZ, they don't need a diploma. As the Wizard said:

"We have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma." 

And there are those of us with enough degrees already. Recently, my husband --a very accomplished man with several degrees, not in science-- became interested in the topic of Biology and Evolution. At first he found several PBS Nova TV  shows online about the topic, but that wasn't enough. He wanted to delve into the subject deeper. My son pointed him to the wealth of university lectures available online, and for the last week or so, he has been watching and listening to lectures on this topic given by a professor from Yale University.

Just think about that, Boomers! We may not be the first generation of people to return to school after their children are grown. (I had an uncle who consistently audited college courses after he retired.) However, we are the first generation to have such a wealth of free educational materials available to us online. We are the first generation that doesn't have to travel to enrich our lives with education. You can have arthritis, be a shut in, and still benefit. My uncle had to travel to the campus to take his course, he had to enroll in classes, even to audit them. However, if you don't care about getting a degree, you don't have to enroll. You don't have to pay anything--except the cost of a broadband or even a dial-up connection-- to get this education.

And it's not just any education. We can see lectures from the best educators at the best universities. If you don't understand the subject matter the first time, you can listen to the lectures as many times as you want. How wonderful is that? And how powerful?

How do you find these lectures?

Go to Google and type in "University Lectures Online Free" and your search results will come up with a number of choices.

A trip to Yale's Open Courses  at www.oyc.yale.edu brings you to this page or one similar. The featured courses change frequently:

If you click on the Courses tab, you'll find the whole list of courses offered online. It's quite extensive, but Yale is far from the only college that gives away its education for free. YouTube has many lectures given by university professors posted as does iTunes. In both of these websites, all you have to do is search for "university lectures." Some lectures are available in video form, some can only be listed to as an MP3 or a Podcast. You can listen to a lecture on the Economic Crisis and Globalization, or one about the Geography of US Presidential Elections, or Art History and English lectures. Whatever your desire, you can dabble in these courses, and if you are very interested, you can listen to the entire series.

A while ago, I posted about brain games for Boomers. Playing games that are difficult for you and require you to learn a new way of thinking is definitely something Boomers should do. Scientists speculate that playing games help you create new synapses and help keep your brain young. But so does learning any new skill or concept.

For enjoyment, I highly recommend online courses by great lecturers. I believe you will find listening and viewing rewarding and also strangely compelling. Once you start being bombarded with new ideas, you'll want to keep going.

Happy learning, Boomers!

Boomers: Get Out There and Take Classes Online!

Recently I've gotten a lot of interest from friends of mine who would like to go back to college to complete degrees or to get a Masters and are fascinated that some of the classes I am taking are taught online. I know this isn't a new phenomena. A friend of mine was going for her PhD online at least ten years ago. Her program involved some online courses and some on site coursework. I remember she flew out to her host university's campus to participate in some activities. However, recently some of my friends want to know: how does taking classes online work? So I'm going to try to answer their questions in this blog post.

At Pace University, and many other universities, online courses are taught through the website and a portal program called Blackboard. You access Blackboard with your university email address and password. When you open the program, you are given all kinds of options. I click on the one that says "Courses in Which You are Enrolled." That brings me to another page where the professor has made announcements for the week. On the left hand side of the page is a list of other options.

The majority of my courses include "lectures" from an instructor which are posted on the web site under the Course Documents section. Assignments include readings from the assigned books or outside articles which may be posted to the website under the Course Documents section. Sometimes a video clip or Powerpoint to watch is posted. Or students may be asked to find their own examples through the library web site. In one course which was being taken by Masters in Publishing students from across the US and even one on an army base in Germany, we were told to go to a magazine newsstand and select a relevant magazine for an assignment. In other words, while assignments may be online, students often use books, magazines and other materials to complete their assignments.

In many classes, much of the course work is done via the Blackboard Discussion Board. On the Discussion Board the teacher may pose a question, ask for a reaction to the reading, ask for questions on the lecture or lead a discussion on any number of open ended topics. Sometimes a professor says you have to respond to one or more of your classmates, but often the discussions are so interesting people tend to interact with many more of their classmates. Also, Discussion Board topics are much more useful when the instructors weigh in on the subjects with their expertise and points of view.

Key to keeping an online class interesting and engaging is the teacher's ability to be organized and to be available to students via e-mail and other communications options. Since you can't see your professor in person, you have to get good at framing questions precisely so that the correct question gets answered. Teachers need solid lecture notes to make this work.


Online learners are also asked to do group projects and collaborate. Sometimes they collaborate via Blackboard tools. Sometimes they use other collaborative tools like Google Docs, a free collaborative offering from Google. Papers are collected online too. Students create Microsoft Word files for their papers and drop the assignments into a "Digital Drop Box." Like the drop box at Blockbuster, once you put your paper there, you cannot retrieve it.

People may be surprised to learn that tests can be given online as well. Sometimes tests are simply questions that  students can take as much time as they want to answer, and then post the answers to the Assessment section of Blackboard. Sometimes there are timed tests that have to be completed within a time frame stated in the Assessment section.

I know some online Universities use videos of teachers giving lectures, but that hasn't been my experience at Pace. Nor do I have to tune in to a "live" class at a certain time, which I know is a staple of some other University classes.

While I take some of my classes on campus, I enjoy my online classes as well. Done correctly, with great care from the instructor, the student gets individual attention even though he or she is just a name and an email address. I can't tell you how good returning to school has made me feel, fellow Boomers. So I highly recommend that those of you who haven't tried this before, take a class online to see how it suits you.