Online courses directory (19947)

Strumming Simplified is an in depth course that covers everything you need to know about strumming on the guitar.

Having trouble playing along? Here's whay you need to know to master the strumming patterns of your favorite songs.

This course will introduce you to the field known as Science and Technology Studies (STS). STS is an interdisciplinary field that examines how science and technology shape societies, cultures, and the environment and how social, cultural, and environmental factors shape the development of science and technology. These rich connections are most easily seen in areas such as the Internet and other digital technologies; the biological sciences (including biotechnology, genetics, and genomics); medical sciences and technologies; energy sciences and technologies; and ecological and environmental sciences. STS also studies the history of science, focusing on how social and cultural values and interests have shaped science and technology. This course begins with an introduction to STS and continues by examining the nature of science according to various philosophical perspectives. In the process, you will be introduced to key terms necessary for understanding those perspectives. When you have finished this course,…

This course provides an introduction to the history of technology for the Science, Technology, and Society (STS) major. The course surveys major technological developments from ancient to modern times with particular attention to social, political, and cultural contexts in Europe and the United States. You will also think critically about the theory of technological determinism, the ways in which technology has defined “progress” and “civilization”, and the major ethical considerations surrounding today’s technological decisions. This course begins with discussions of the promotion of technology in centralized states of the ancient and medieval worlds: the Roman Empire, Song and Ming China, and the Islamic Abbasid Empire. After a period of relative decline, the states of Western Europe centralized and flourished once again, having benefited from the westward transmission of key ideas and technologies from the East. The focus of the course then shifts to the West, to the technologies of the Renai…

An outline of statutes enforced by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.

Student Guide is the companion for students as they enrol in each Unit and to help them attain the Diploma Certificate

A simple 6 step action plan to create a classroom where students are intrinsically motivated to learn.

This course explores how teachers can capitalize on what students bring to the classroom - their ideas, perceptions, and misunderstandings - to advance the learning of all students in the class, a practice we call “leveraging student thinking”.

Taking as its starting point the works of one of Britain's most respected, prolific—and funny—living dramatists, this seminar will explore a wide range of knowledge in fields such as math, philosophy, politics, history and art. The careful reading and discussion of plays by (Sir) Tom Stoppard and some of his most compelling contemporaries (including Caryl Churchill, Anna Deveare Smith and Howard Barker) will allow us to time-travel and explore other cultures, and to think about the medium of drama as well as one writer's work in depth. Some seminar participants will report on earlier plays that influenced these writers, others will research everything from Lord Byron's poetry to the bridges of Konigsberg, from Dadaism to Charter 77. Employing a variety of critical approaches (both theoretical and theatrical), we will consider what postmodernity means, as applied to these plays. In the process, we will analyze how drama connects with both the culture it represents and that which it addresses in performance. We will also explore the wit and verbal energy of these contemporary dramatists…not to mention, how Fermat's theorem, classical translation, and chaos theory become the stuff of stage comedy.

This course explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Molière. The class compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimentation as well as reading, writing, researching and conversing.

What has been said of Moby-Dick—that it's the greatest novel no one ever reads—could just as well be said of any number of American "classics" like The Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This course reconsiders a small number of nineteenth-century American novels by presenting each in a surprising context.

This course investigates relationships between two media, film and literature, studying works linked across the two media by genre, topic, and style. It aims to sharpen appreciation of major works of cinema and of literary narrative. The course explores how artworks challenge and cross cultural, political and aesthetic boundaries. It includes some attention to theory of narrative. Films to be studied include works by Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Francis Ford Coppolla, Clint Eastwood, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, and Federico Fellini, among others. Literary works include texts by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Honoré de Balzac, Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

How do literature, philosophy, film and other arts respond to the profound changes in world view and lifestyle that mark the twentieth century? This course considers a broad range of works from different countries, different media, and different genres, in exploring the transition to a decentered "Einsteinian" universe.

William Butler Yeats occupies a dominant position in the lives and work of the Irish poets who followed him. We will explore some of that poetry, and consider how later poets, especially female poets, tried to come to grips with, or escape from, that dominance. As a seminar, the subject will place special emphasis on student involvement and control. I will ask you to submit one ten-twelve page essay, two shorter (five page) essays, and to accept the role of "leadoff person," perhaps more than once, That role will demand that you choose from among the assigned readings for that session the poem we should focus upon, and to offer either a provocative articulation of what the poem is about, or a provocative question which the poem confronts, and which we should grapple with, as well.

The disciplines of music history and music theory have been slow to embrace the digital revolutions that have transformed other fields' text-based scholarship (history and literature in particular). Computational musicology opens the door to the possibility of understanding—even if at a broad level—trends and norms of behavior of large repertories of music. This class presents the major approaches, results, and challenges of computational musicology through readings in the field, gaining familiarity with datasets, and hands on workshops and assignments on data analysis and "corpus" (i.e., repertory) studies. Class sessions alternate between discussion/lecture and labs on digital tools for studying music. A background in music theory and/or history is required, and experience in computer programming will be extremely helpful. Coursework culminates in an independent research project in quantitative or computational musicology that will be presented to the class as a whole.

Is marriage a patriarchal institution? Much feminist scholarship has characterized it that way, but now in the context of the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, the meaning of marriage itself demands serious re-examination. This course will discuss history, literature, film, and legal scholarship, making use of cross-cultural, sociological, anthropological, and many other theoretical approaches to the marriage question from 1630 to the present. As it turns out, sex, marriage, and the family have never been stable institutions; to the contrary, they have continued to function as flash points for the very social and cultural questions that are central to gender studies scholarship.

How do we define Public Art? This course focuses on the production of projects for public places. Public Art is a concept that is in constant discussion and revision, as much as the evolution and transformation of public spaces and cities are. Monuments are repositories of memory and historical presences with the expectation of being permanent. Public interventions are created not to impose and be temporary, but as forms intended to activate discourse and discussion. Considering the concept of a museum as a public device and how they are searching for new ways of avoiding generic identities, we will deal with the concept of the personal imaginary museum. It should be considered as a point of departure to propose a personal individual construction based on the concept of defining a personal imaginary museum - concept, program, collection, events, architecture, public diffusion, etc.

Brought to you by the US Department of State and Arizona State University, this course is designed for internationally-minded faculty, staff, and administrators working in US higher education institutions who would like to increase rates of study abroad participation. This course is also for people who aspire to work in international education and would like an orientation to the field.

Want to increase your educational institution’s study abroad efforts? Whether you work for a community college, a large, small, public or private university, or any other type of higher education institution in the US, this course will help you form partnerships, develop policies and procedures, advise students, promote scholarships, deliver orientations, and market your programs. You will learn recommended practices for ensuring the health and safety of students while abroad, and case studies will show you how the study abroad experience can be integrated into your school’s curriculum and can internationalize your campus. By the end of the course, you will have developed a long-term strategy for your institution that prioritizes reaching diverse students.

Learn to Play a Piece by a Classical Guitar Master

The free online course Study Skills provides detailed information on a variety of techniques you can use to greatly improve your study skills. The course also has advice on how you can identify and overcome common study problems, how you can manage your study workload and how you can develop good time management skills. The course begins by showing you how learning occurs most effectively in a cycle of four steps: Preparing, Absorbing, Capturing and Reviewing. Goal setting and planning ahead are also covered as well as the best ways to stay focused and motivated to reach your study goals. You will also learn about strategies for managing, prioritizing and dealing with time. Next, you will learn about learning strategies such as the process of storing and retrieving information, the use of mnemonics for memorizing lists and data, and the most effective ways to ask questions either in a classroom setting or in an online forum. The four main methods and formats of note taking are explained. You will also learn about the critical thinking process such as asking the right questions to understand a problem and considering the value of research material and deciding how to use it. You will learn effective strategies for studying online e-learning courses, and how you can stay motivated to successfully complete online courses. You will learn about the process of active reading, and the strategies used to engage with text-based materials. You will also learn about how to review and evaluate different types of texts with a particular focus on the methods used with math and science based material. Exam situations are also covered, explaining the different types of tests, how to combat test anxiety and how study groups can give you new perspectives on material and help you fill in gaps in your notes. Finally, you are introduced to the methods of academic writing such as how to produce a first draft and review it for errors, and how to present it in a professional format. The three stages in the writing process are explained: Preparing, Writing the draft and Revising and editing. You will also learn how writing skills are transferable and can be used in the classroom, in online courses or in exam situations. This course will be of great interest to learners studying a wide range of subjects as it will help you develop and implement very effective study skills that will increase your confidence and performance.<br />