What’s the best online course you’ve ever taken?
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Today’s WordPress question is, “What’s the best online course you’ve ever taken?”
There’s an interesting assumption buried in that question. Apparently, everyone is taking online courses these days, and we’re all taking so many of them that we can rank them from best to worst. I suppose I’m expected to have a Top 10 list, complete with honorable mentions and perhaps a championship bracket.
Sorry, WordPress. I don’t have one.
It’s not that I’ve never taken an online course. I’ve taken plenty of them over the years, but almost all were mandated by my school district. If you’re a teacher, you know exactly what I’m talking about. There are training modules, professional development requirements, compliance courses, and the occasional quiz designed to make sure you were paying attention instead of clicking through the slides while thinking about what you’re having for dinner.
I’m not saying those courses are worthless. Some contain genuinely useful information. But there’s a difference between taking a course because you want to learn something and taking one because somebody in an office somewhere decided everybody needs to complete it before Friday.
There is one exception. I’m currently taking a course on artificial intelligence and how teachers can use it to improve classroom instruction. That’s a subject that genuinely interests me, particularly because AI is already changing the way students learn, write, research, and occasionally try to convince their teachers that they wrote something they most certainly did not write.
I’ve learned quite a bit about AI already, largely by using it, experimenting with it, and occasionally arguing with it when it insists that it knows what I meant better than I do. So this course has the potential to be worthwhile. But I’m still taking it, which means declaring it the best online course I’ve ever taken would be a little premature.
Maybe one day I’ll pursue a master’s degree in something. I’ve thought about it, and I wouldn’t rule it out. If I do, there’s a pretty good chance at least some of the coursework will be online. At that point, perhaps I’ll have enough experience to put together a proper ranking.
But right now, my answer to today’s question is pretty simple: I haven’t taken enough online courses by choice to declare one the best.
And perhaps that’s the real lesson here, WordPress. If you’re going to ask a question of people from every imaginable background, interest, and walk of life, maybe ask one that doesn’t assume we’re all doing the same things.
Something like, “What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned recently?”
Now that’s a question I could answer.
Although, knowing WordPress, tomorrow they’ll probably ask me which mountain I most enjoyed climbing during my last expedition to Nepal.
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