Online astronomy videos and study sources

Tej, by a spooky coincidence, 2 minutes ago I was checking my diary for the dates of the Moons course Which I signed up to a while ago!

I might do the Orion course as well.

I have to admit, I’m not very clear about how they do the courses. Is it at a set time or is there a zero hour at which they release that week’s online material?

OK, the attraction of these Futurelearn courses is that you get support from the lecturer and assistant teachers online to help you for the official duration of the course (they're available morning until evening everyday). Each week will cover certain amount of content and its on that content, they will provide online support for that week. Then they move on to a following week of course content. The content itself (ie the lecture videos, exercises and course material) are permanently available but you just dont get the staff support after the week it was covered. So the content is released on Mondays and for the rest of the week, tutors are on standby, so you cover the content anytime during that week (if wanting the support).

I have fallen behind on previous course and even though I may have missed the support of the lecturers, the other class students also help each other and to those lagging behind. Its a nice system. All the support answers and questions are also stored permanently so you can do past courses and if stuck, can find answers in the student Q+as

Hope that explains your query, Andy and have fun with Moons course, I'll join in again!

Sounds great! Thanks, Tej!

Thanks Tej

Just signed up for the Moons course 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ6yaFcO5DQ interesting channel on you tube, can also get online radio station.

can also get online radio station.

http://www.startalkradio.net/
Oh, gosh. How annoying. (a) This looks like a lot of fun (and I'm too busy to listen right now!!!), and (b) I may have to start liking Neil Degrasse Tyson. Funny guy, nice way of explaining things. "If insects were lab technicians they wouldn't have discovered gravity because gravity doesn't affect them on their scale the way it affects us. Surface tension, for example, is much more important..."

The Orion course on Futurelearn commences now. Its a four week course, 3 hours studying per week which you can do anytime within each week of the course. Its not too late to join in as long as you do so anytime this week to take advantage of the online tutor communications during the run of the course.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/orion/todo/1408

Have fun with it if you're doing it 🙂 I've joined in.

The Discovery of The Biggs Hoson course commences this week. Its a 7 week course and much more meatier and advanced than the 4 week Orion course that is in its final week this week which turned out to be a very basic course as an introductory to Astronomy.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/higgs-2/todo/1126

This Higgs course, unlike most other Futurelearn courses actually offers an examination and qualification certificate, as well as the more common certificate of participance that all Futurelearn courses offer. SO expect this to be more challenging if you going on it 🙂

I am doing this one too. Enjoy the course if you also doing it!

A new course will start on Futurelearn called:

Gravity: From Big Bang to Black Holes.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/gravity?utm_source=FL_DB&utm_medium=crm&utm_campaign=28_07_2015_FL_newsletter&utm_content=text

Looks like its Everything you always wanted to know about Gravity but were afraid to ask...

Its timed for the 100th anniversary of Einstein's theory of relativity.

Will commence on 26th October

Thanks Tej

I really enjoyed the moons course so much I just signed up for the Gravity one 🙂

A new course will start on Futurelearn called:

Gravity: From Big Bang to Black Holes.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/gravity?utm_source=FL_DB&utm_medium=crm&utm_campaign=28_07_2015_FL_newsletter&utm_content=text

Looks like its Everything you always wanted to know about Gravity but were afraid to ask…

Its timed for the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Will commence on 26th October

Another run of this Gravity course started two weeks ago:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/gravity/1/todo/2886

I thought I posted a reminder of this course when it started but it seems I may not have clicked submit or something. So sorry for that. Its a seven week course and its not too late to catch up. It doesnt matter if you are lagging behind on it, I am one week behind myself. Its a good course so far, although I am struggling a tad with some of the basic theory explanation...of General relativity. I cant understand why I am struggling getting my head around such a simple straightforward concept 😉

Anyway, jump in if you have some time, thousands of people are on it and discussing the lectures in the accompanying comment threads and the quizzes are fun to do.

E=mC-squared - what else is there to know? 😉

Edit: I'm forgetting my manners: thanks for posting that Future Learn course link, Tej.

A friend of mine just told me about another 'Moocs'* provider, Coursera. Here's a listing of their astronomy courses.

Also edx.org's astronomy stuff.

*Massive Open Online Courses

A friend of mine just told me about another ‘Moocs’* provider, Coursera. Here’s a listing of their astronomy courses. Also edx.org’s astronomy stuff. *Massive Open Online Courses

Thats a lot of meaty courses there, great stuff, Andy.   There's enough modules in that list to add up to a degree, surely!

Hey! Good point! A free University of Mooc degree!!

Thanks for posting that Andy 🙂 looks really good