Coursera - April 2015

My Coursera workload in March was light because of the Master Naturalist course workload during the month. It will pick up a little in April.

I finished up the video/reading portion of Australian Literature: a rough guide (University of Western Australia) in March. I appreciated the approach of selecting readings to demonstrate contradictory perceptions: coast and center, home and away, justice and injustice…all with the backdrop of Australian landscape and history. I was surprised at how deep the historical context turned out to be in a short course but perhaps any course about a literature fitted into a national boundary has to bring that nation’s history to the fore.

I started one course during March: Maps and the Geospatial Revolution (The Pennsylvania State University) and it will continue though most of April. It has a linkage to the project I am doing for my Master Naturalist certification - involving a map, of course.

Water in the Western United States (University of Colorado Boulder) is the next course to start (today!). In Maryland, our challenge is more often water quality rather than quantity…in the Western US, the challenge is both.

Now that I have successfully ramped down my Coursera activities so that I could focus on the Master Naturalist class - I’m thinking about the way I want to enjoy Coursera offerings going forward. An annual cycle of activity is beginning to emerge for my volunteer and vacation activities - with peaks in the spring and fall. Should I try to make the peaks for Coursera workload in winter and summer? Is it even possible? It is so hard to not sign up for a course that interests me whenever it is offered!