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Re:Coursera shuts access to old platform courses by wpietri on Saturday June 11, 2016 @12:16AM (#11882028)
> Really motivated people will [...]

I'm not a big fan of this argument, which I see here too often. Really, truly motivated people don't need the Internet either. For any obstacle to learning, you can always say that it's not a problem because somebody, somewhere makes through.

I took exactly one Coursera course, Odersky's Scala course. But it was a great experience. Going through the material on a schedule with a bunch of other people got me to work harder than I would have on my own. I learned way more than I would have without the structure. Does that mean I wasn't "really motivated"? Sure, I guess. But the point of having educational institutions, rather than just giving everybody library cards and turning them loose, is to make it easy for a large number of people to learn.

So if it's suddenly harder for people to learn, even if they aren't judged truly worthy, I'm willing to call that a bad thing.

Re:Coursera shuts access to old platform courses by furyofantares on Saturday June 11, 2016 @12:32AM (#11882080)
Additionally, I think it's a misleading thought pattern to divide the world into motivated/unmotivated individuals since motivation can vary within a person.

I've successfully learned quite a few difficult things without Coursera etc that I was highly motivated to learn. And I've learned more things via Coursera that I was less motivated to learn (or didn't even know I wanted to learn).

Re:Coursera shuts access to old platform courses by TeMPOraL on Saturday June 11, 2016 @04:17AM (#11882628)
Also motivation can vary heavily by conditions. In some cases, the difference between strong motivation and utter lack of it can be structure that lets you start and maintain a feedback loop of positive feelings.