Coursera vs. Study Island

The Coursera platform can be a useful part of your overall learning content portfolio if utilized correctly. It's fantastic for asynchronous courses that don't necessarily need a dedicated faculty member (though I'd highly recommend at least having some discussion moderators/student workers) and for offering MOOCs. The ability for the learners to contribute translations really makes it ideal for the international learning community - I am always amazed to see a course we launched with 2-3 languages to quickly have 10-12 more added. This feature really helps expand the audience reach and Coursera has such a large following already that it can grow seemingly overnight.

Incentivized

Over all, I was very impressed with my experience using Study Island. I think that it provides a great resource for teachers of larger groups of students. On the other hand, it may not be as worthwhile of an investment in a small group or individual student level. All in all, kids love this program, and it provides teachers with an in-depth look at how a child is progressing or understanding the content/standard being covered in the Study Island activity. The colors are fun, the graphics are fun, and the questions are nicely organized and customizable.

Incentivized

• Interaction: the student learns by doing. For programming courses, this means programming!
• Assessments: the courses I'd taken ask students to grade each others work with a rubric. This is hugely effective and permits tests and quizzes to be other than multiple choice.
• Creativity and enthusiasm of the instructors. Some of the approaches demonstrated real out-of-the-box thinking by the instructors. For example, the Rice Python course was a self-contained website requiring no installation of IDE on one's computer, and the final project was a working version of Asteroids.
• Low cost of entry: most of the course I enrolled in were free, with an optional fee for certifications. This really gives people the freedom to explore learning. It's almost like a Public Library of Learning.
• Coursera forces a weekly discipline on the user with lectures and assignments and this really motivates one to put in the effort.

Incentivized

• Fun user-friendly format.
• Engaging games for students.
• Easy to navigate for all teachers, regardless of their familiarity with computers.

Incentivized

• Some of the courses (very few) have some old information (more than 2 years), and in some areas like technology the information has to be very new and updated.
• Some professors or people doing videos are not good in front of the camera, they should train their people a little bit more for those things.

Incentivized

• The program would be great with seasonal games.

Incentivized

Constantly renewing already. One of my favourite MOOC platforms.

Incentivized

User-friendly and developer-friendly Web UI.

Incentivized

I’ve used it a couple of times and... that did great. They take their time, but in the end they solve your issues.

Incentivized

Coursera is familiar, intuitive, compatible and easy to use and implement.

Incentivized

I think Coursera has the best overall interface. I think you will find that different platforms go in different directions, and have different specialities. For the most part the differences are more in the types of courses they offer than one being particularly better than the other, so it comes down to content for me.

Incentivized

I didn't choose Study Island over Renaissance Accelerated Math. Study Island doesn't offer the in-depth review of standards over and over like Renaissance Accelerated Math does. Plus, Renaissance Accelerated Math also makes them wait 2 weeks then re-introduces the standards they have mastered to make sure they still have that mastery, and if they don't, it makes them re-do that standard.

Incentivized

• The greatest benefit of Coursera is access to quality courses on various subjects that you can either browse or dive in deeply. Customizable, flexible and accessible.
• Helps our department to recommend trainees courses on this website and gain important knowledge. Also, the courses are provided by big-name universities which helps students in their careers
• Developing and exploring professional skills.

Incentivized

• It has put teachers on the same page since we are all using the same platform
• It has improved student test scores and retention
• It has given us a platform to create and give student assessments in a fun way outside the typical classroom setting

Incentivized