FREE Harvard University Photography Course, Online

Derrel · Jan 15, 2017

Following Stanford University and its lead of offering free online photo instruction, Harvard University announced just days ago that it is offering the totally free online photography course entitled Digitial Photography. The course offers multiple sign-up methods, including a signup via one's Facebook account. See this page for signup details. Photography Courses – Photography Courses Online | ALISON Course Outline | ALISON

I took the Facebook sign-up route, and within five seconds, was directed, as student "Derrel", to the 12-module course, and the 13th module, the course evaluation module.

limr · Jan 15, 2017

I saw this too. You beat me to the posting

zombiesniper · Jan 15, 2017

Excellent!
Thank you for the thread. I would have never found this.

table1349 · Jan 15, 2017

Oh great. Now are going to have a bunch of people around here claiming to be Harvard graduates. :biggrin-new:

Derrel · Jan 15, 2017

We have recently had a number of people on TPF inquiring about on-line photography instruction, so I've been looking for something to point people toward.

OGsPhotography · Jan 15, 2017

I signed up! Thanks.

annamaria · Jan 15, 2017

Wow that's neat thanks Derrel.

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acparsons · Jan 15, 2017

Woohoo, I'm now a Harvard student.

RowdyRay · Jan 15, 2017

gryphonslair99 said:
Oh great. Now are going to have a bunch of people around here claiming to be Harvard graduates.

Well, I highly doubt adding this to one's resume will make a difference. If it works as a pick up line, I'll let you know.

I signed up. Thank you Derrel.

rexbobcat · Jan 16, 2017

There is also a course from Stanford as well. The website isn't as pretty but it doesn't require signing up.

Digital Photography

vintagesnaps · Jan 16, 2017

This isn't thru Harvard... not showing up on their website anywhere as online learning thru the university.

edit - Wait, there's an update below the article on Petapixel... not thru Harvard.

photo1x1.com · Jan 16, 2017

I just watched a few chapters, and I intially wanted to refrain from posting because I´m well aware that it will sound biased

.
I think it is not a good idea to mix the advantages and disadvantages of photography lessons where you sit in an auditorium and can ask questions with those of an online course. Both have pros and cons, but this rather seems to be a mix of both cons.
Photography is a visual medium and filming a powerpoint presentation will not do justice to any of the images, effects and techniques shown. They could at least have edited images into the video.
Also if this course were a paid course, they´d probably advertise: 10 hours of video for just 99 US$. The thing is though: if it was tailored for an online audience, it would have been waaaaay shorter. The introduction movies last 103 minutes. That is OK if you sit there live, but not motivating enough for most people new to photography sitting in front of a computer monitor without the chance to interact.
Creating online courses is an awful lot of work. The people behind this course just took a pretty easy route. Anyway is free and I appreciate Derrel sharing this, but I think there are better alternatives - being from Harvard alone doesn´t help much.