Are college video lectures/courses any good?

[john1]

Are recorded video lectures like MIT OpenCourseWare a good source for learning? I found this course on human behavioral biology, and it seems pretty good. I know Leo posted some of the lectures from this collection on the blog and said they were good.

I realize that a lot of big-name universities have completely free lectures online and that seems promising to me. Like this one.

But, do they actually deliver on teaching you? What have been your guy's experience with them? Most of them are the same length as Leo's videos, but do they have the same quality and depth in them? I know some lectures will be good, and some will be bad, but are they generally a good source for learning? If not, what are the alternatives? Is Coursera good?

If these are good sources, what are your favorite and best lectures?

[ted73104]

I think it really depends on what your goal is. If you want to build skills for a potential career, I think these lessons don't teach you much. Their content are only useful because they may provide you concepts on which you could use to communicate with your future peers.

As a software engineer, I only found lectures useful when I was studying for my master's degree, where I had to implement actual stuff. Very different from the conceptual lectures I had in college.

Otherwise, there are lots to be learned only if you're interested.

[JosephKnecht]

Check out the Fayman Lectures: https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/messenger.html