Open Source Mobile Apps to help grow your Intellect (Part 3, edX)

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.
-Malcolm X.

The role of education in world growth and civilization can not be underestimated. There is a common saying that no knowledge is a waste. I spend most of my leisure time reading and exploring new knowledge in different branches of education. I have come across some amazing ways to gain more knowledge at almost no cost. E-learning is a good substitute for the native educational system. I live to see e-learning as an advanced educational system, with the major aim of sharing and gaining knowledge still intact.

About two weeks ago, I started this series on simple open-source apps to help you grow your intellect, and this is the third part. On today's blog, I bring a more advanced platform for online learning, which is edX.

What is edX

This is a platform for online learning which offers over 2000 different courses in computer sciences, business management, mathematics, science and engineering, language e.t.c. The online courses are taught experts from top Universities and Organisations like Harvard, Microsoft, MIT, Oxford and may other Universities.

edX offers two main types of services

• Free course

• Paid programs

• On the Free Course, you can enroll for a course for free, but you would be required to pay if you want a verified certificate after the course. Your certificate will be graded based on your performance during the course.

• For the Paid Programs, you have to pay to enroll for the course and this has to be done before the course kicks off. A program may contain one or more courses and has a stipulated time for when to start and when to learn.

Why I Should Use edX

edX is not just some regular e-learning platform. It is more like an approved or recognised substitution to tertiary education. Below are some of my reasons.

• Over 2000 Different Courses
  **edX covers a wide variety of STEAM education also with some Management and language courses. Unlike most other online learning platforms that are limited in their available courses, new courses are added everyday to edX. Currently I'm enrolled for two different courses and their style also seems to be unique and superb.

Doing a little comparison to my last blog on the series, where I talked about Stepik, the knowledge-test/quiz pattern on edX seems to be more advanced. On edX, before you enroll for a course, you are shown statistics on how long the course would take you and how long it will be available. After each class, you are given a quiz. The quiz is just a means for you to test your knowledge, and a protocol to grade you if you will apply for a verified certificate.

Stepik on the other-hand offers a free certificate on any course you offer. So the quiz is a compulsory protocol in any course you enroll for.

For programs on edX, once the stipulated time for the program has passed, the courses are archived while Stepik saves all previous courses offered as documents on the site for new comers to enroll in.
As an employer, you can purchase a program for a group to help train your employees on a particular field. So edX can also be used in advanced training and not just first hand knowledge.

• Issuance of Verified Certificate

According to present educational system in the world today, a certificate is a proof of knowledge acquired in a specific field of study. edX issues certificates after each course and not just any certificate, but a verified certificate. Each course on edX is taken by a top university which will be responsible for issuing the certificate post-course.

Source

A certificate from Harvard, Microsoft, Oxford or MIT isn't something most employers would overlook. So this is a substitute way of getting those certificates if you cannot enroll for college education due to high fees.

Although these professional certificate programs on edX are not totally free, they are more cost effective as compared to college fees. They are also more direct and focus on in demand courses to help in creating critical skills for both entrepreneur start-ups and top Jobs.

School at Your Preferred Time

Unlike the native school system where you have to keep with scheduled time for lectures and tests and once you've missed them, that's it. Here you can access the lectures at your own preferred and leisure time. So long as you keep up with the curriculum and stipulated end date for the program.

How Do I Get Started With edX

To get started, simply go to Google Play Store or Apple Store and download the edX online course* app. You can register either with google, facebook or normal registration forms.

Using this platform is quite easy and self-explanatory. It has a user-friendly interface with no ads. When you enroll for a course, you can download video tutorials on that course for view while offline. edX also tries to make the course more interactive with a post session. Here students are also enabled to make posts regarding the course, such as questions and corrections. A fellow student an reply to a post by another student, thus the interaction and shared knowledge.

My Ratings for The App

On a scale of 1-10, I would rate edX 8/10. Although edX is an amazing platform for students to study online, the app still has some inconveniences it offers. The edX app loads too long and consumes large amount of mobile data. Also you still have to go online for most of the activities on the app. For instance, to enroll for a professional program, which is a basic feature of the platform , you would still have to the online website to do that. Overall it is still an amazing platform to gain some extra knowledge both as a professional or a starter.

Thanks For Reading

Links

Project Repository: https://github.com/edx/edx-app-android

Github Link: https://github.com/tony-duke

Resources
Images were sourced properly

Series Backlinks

Part 1 Open Source Mobile Apps to help grow your Intellect (Part 1, Wikipedia)

Part 2 Open Source Mobile Apps to help grow your Intellect (Part 2, STEPIK)