Coursera

I am currently completing a course (social psychology) online at Coursera and am favourably impressed with the way the course has been done. I believe not all courses they offer at Coursera are as good as this - more on this later. The video lectures were short (10-25 mins) and engaging with the lecturer speaking as in he was in a small informal group and punctuating the lecture with pictures, questions, video clips etc. There were downloadable readings. There were weekly assignments which were diverse, imaginative and not too academic. There were very active forums - possible because of thousands of students all doing the course together. There was also a series of customised Google Hangout sessions with other students in groups of 4 or 5.

The topic being psychology made possible a style which would be more difficult with the hard sciences but it seems to be near the cutting edge of online learning. Recommended.