<p>Has anyone tried this in high school? Any tips, suggestions or warnings? How does it work? My son might want to use it to continue/maintain the Chinese language skills that he gained while abroad.</p>
<p>With OCW, you just go on the website whenever you feel like it and look at all the resources. It’s very self-motivated: there’s no deadlines or schedule of any sort, no reward for completing it except satisfaction, and it can be as in depth or not as you want. The amount of resources varies: some, such as the OCW Scholar courses, are very self-contained, with lectures, recitations, problem sets, etc. Pretty much the only thing not provided is grading. However, other courses are just lists of readings from the textbooks, which in some cases are copyright protected and therefore can’t be posted online, and examples of tests and quizzes and homework. You can’t generalize; you have to check each course independently. A lot of the courses are just meant to be supplements.</p>
<p>The Chinese course is on the bare side: it provides some resources, but as a self contained course it leaves a lot to be desired. There’s a lot of reference to textbooks, etc. that have to be bought from the publisher. In addition, it teaches traditional, and if (like me) your son has previously only experienced simplified characters, it may be a bit of a struggle. Personally, while I love OCW for things like programming and calculus, I couldn’t learn the language from it. I suggest your son take a look at it and give it a shot.</p>
<p>If on the other hand he wants to take more advanced classes in Chinese to continue immersion, I’ve heard the translations on OCW are pretty good. However, (again assuming he’s learned simplified), it may be better to take courses designed with Chinese as the primary language and not translated. Then EdX would be a better bet, as several Chinese universities provide courses through the platform. It offers classes ranging from science to culture to literature to architecture through Peking and Tsinghua Universities. There’s also Coursera. </p>
<p>Please reply if you want more specifics on any of the options! I’m a bit of an online course expert.</p>