I hate Coursera's model, though. They just replicated the school/college model into the web, and that's stupid.

Having to wait for sessions doesn't make any sense, as does having a pre-defined time to complete. The study material should be always available, and peer review could be constant.

It seems it was created to appeal academia though, so I see why it's like that.

As an anecdote in the other direction, I love the fact that the courses have a pre-defined schedule and end date.

Without deadlines, a serial procrastinator like myself would never finish a course.

At Udacity, I've successfully completed the two classes I took when they were first released (and had deadlines). On the other hand, I only lasted around a week with the two classes that are under "open enrollment".

Why not offer both options? Either take it at a predefined pace in line with academic semesters or at your own pace. Seems like it would be the best of both worlds.

See the answer below by sudont, which is spot on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5961376

Why not set specific course deadlines your self?

Because procrastination is the inability to deal with self-set deadlines. By definition, even: "the action of delaying or postponing something." Which means that a self-imposed deadline gets set back indefinitely, forever.

I'm of the same mind as markdown—simple Udacity and iTunes U classes were ignored, but Jeff Leek's much, much harder Biostatistics class was something I completed relatively easily (the deadlines at least. And I did pass.)

The sad truth is the majority of people (and I am one) are not suited for autodidactical learning. The motivation may or may not be there, but the ability to push forward as per Socrates' mythical student was told is not. Those deadlines, in light of human nature, are the killer feature.

http://www.joyfulministry.org/socratt.htm

I'm trying an approach where I 'register' for everything I might be interested in since then I get to view the class archive.

I do that, but some of the archives expire... I've taken to downloading the lectures as well.

I disagree to an extent. For some classes (it's quite variable), the forums can be of great quality, and it can be greatly enriching to be learning the material (and educational tangents that occur in the forums) along with lots of others. It's just not possible to get a cohort of people learning things at the same time as you on your own.

In fact, I am kind of hoping that a community is made where people can get together and study any educational material themselves. Coursera still lacks upper-level classes; it would be great to use the great aggregation of the internet to find a group of people to study advanced material together.

I joined the Discrete Optimization course (at Coursera) last weekend (almost one week late) and all the lessons where already available.

Some people seem to have already done all the assigments, judging from the leaderboards.

I'm always a bit confused about these things. Coursera puts colleges courses on the Internet and they don't discriminate who takes them. Therefore people who couldn't take them before now can. No doubt there is a "tiger parent" somewhere streaming Coursera feeds via an iPad into their toddler's play area on the off chance it will engage them.

I think its great that we've increased the reach of this education but that people take advantage of it isn't a story in itself. A good story would be "8th graders solve their village's water problem by using civil engineering things they have learned on Coursera." Sort of like the guy who built a generator out of junk to charge cell phones in Africa.

Yeah, seeing the headline immediately made me picture a tiger parent submitting stories to HN...

["BREAKING: 5th-Grader Masters Beethoven Piano Sonata, Immediately Resumes Violin Practice"]

i like education, but for some reason this just seems like "hey two people are using coursera," which isn't really saying much. i guess i applaud the students for being in 8th grade and wanting more. it does not matter that they are twins. and "einstein" course? really? this hurts me inside as this is something in my area of study. please just call it what it really is: physics.