A number of regular universities around the world have embraced the MOOC model. The professors are happy sharing their expertise and tutorials with an audience spread across the globe. The best part is that it’s all for free. Using these courses as a stepping stone for your homeschool students to figure out what they like to study best is a great idea.
It’s not going to drain your pockets if they learn more about nutrition from a professor at Stanford University via Coursera, or about Greek Heroes on EdX. Besides sites like Khan Academy, Google Code University, Saylor.org, and Alison, there are some of the regular universities offering courses to net based learners. Here are a few sites to start off with.
A number of on-demand courses can be downloaded for self study from the MIT Open Courseware. The biggest draw is that the course is almost identical to what is being taught in regular classes at MIT.
Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
There are a number of courses available for individual study on this website. There is a whole lot of content that you can access for free. All you need to do is set up a free account and you can browse through the full site.
The UMass courseware has no videos or slides, but offers a number of courses in subjects such as psychology, biology, early education, political science, history, and mathematics. They do offer the syllabus, assignments, and recommended reading.
A large number of programs are on offer here. You can read the synopsis and choose to download the program that interests you. There is no interactive element allowing students to network while they learn.
Currently there are only ten courses on offer from this Australian website and the focus is primarily on technology. There are lecture notes and testing assignments for each module. It is mostly individual study based.
No matter what subject your homeschool student wants to explore, you will be able to find some course on these websites, for free, that can be used by him.
