Jay Schalin of National Review recently wrote of Libertas U. and recommends it for knowledge hungry adults.

Calling All Life-Long Learners

I’ve taken five online courses at five different institutions over the years. Only one of them has been an enjoyable experience. That was at Libertas U., a new “virtual” online school that, for the time being, offers non-credit courses for adults who wish to learn history, political theory, or high culture (my course was a close reading of Machiavelli’s The Prince, for whom I have a new appreciation). Plans are afoot to move to credit-bearing courses in the near future.

One of the problems I had with other online adventures was that the explanation of difficult concepts (as well as forming accurate questions about them) is very difficult and time-consuming for both student and teacher when both have to write them out instead of talking. In order for the schools to make the courses economically feasible, the teachers have to work only limited hours in exchange for low salaries. Since answering students’ questions is extremely time-consuming, if done properly, teachers tend to farm such matters out to the student discussion boards—where you are more likely to get bad info (or no info) than a good explanation. The experience can be quite frustrating.

Not so at Libertas U. It is as close to being in a real classroom as possible. Students get their own avatars to represent them. The avatars can move around and speak in real time, just like real students. Libertas students are not merely passive observers of videos, as they are at some of the more-heralded MOOC-style schools. They are active participants; the classes are discussion-laden seminars with lots of give and take—the “online explanation problem” doesn’t exist.