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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +layout: blog-detail |
| 3 | +post-type: blog |
| 4 | +by: Julien Richard-Foy, Vincent Derouand, and Valérie Pedroni (Scala Center) |
| 5 | +title: "Learn Scala with Online Courses" |
| 6 | +--- |
| 7 | + |
| 8 | +Happy new year to everyone! We hope 2022 will be of great joy, and will be a |
| 9 | +source of fruitful collaboration between the Scala Center and the community! |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +As you might be listing your 2022 goals, why not include Scala in it? |
| 12 | +Refresh your programming skills, acquire new knowledge, and get a new |
| 13 | +certificate! |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +In this post, we remind you of our online courses designed for both beginners |
| 16 | +and experienced programmers, we report on what happened in 2021, and we share |
| 17 | +our plans for 2022. |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +## 2021 Retrospective |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +In 2021, with the release of Scala 3 we updated nearly all of our MOOCs to |
| 22 | +Scala 3: |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +- [Functional Programming Principles in Scala], |
| 25 | +- [Functional Program Design], |
| 26 | +- [Parallel Programming], |
| 27 | +- [Programming Reactive Systems] with Akka. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +We also kept the Scala 2 versions of these courses online, but we observed |
| 30 | +that the majority of the learners took the Scala 3 versions (e.g., 97% in the |
| 31 | +case of Functional Programming Principles in Scala). |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +The only courses that still use Scala 2 are the courses that depend on Spark, |
| 34 | +which does not yet fully support Scala 3 (see below our plans in this regard). |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +We also published a new course: [Effective Programming in Scala]. This |
| 37 | +course teaches programmers all they need to be ready to work in Scala. |
| 38 | +We are proud to report that this course was one of the [100 most popular |
| 39 | +courses of the year 2021][rank] (out of the 2900 courses created in 2021 on |
| 40 | +various MOOC platforms). Thanks to Effective Programming in Scala, we believe |
| 41 | +that hiring should not be a concern for companies using Scala. |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +In total, in 2021, more than three thousand people completed a Scala online |
| 44 | +course! Thank you to them for trusting us as their teachers, and |
| 45 | +congratulations on acquiring new knowledge! |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +Finally, we have recently re-organized the website to have a |
| 48 | +[dedicated page](https://docs.scala-lang.org/online-courses.html) presenting |
| 49 | +the Scala courses from the Scala Center. We also published a short video |
| 50 | +summarizing the main points: |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +<div style="text-align: center"> |
| 53 | + <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rRCdnTspE_k" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
| 54 | +</div> |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +## Plans for 2022 |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +In 2022, we plan to update the Spark courses to Spark 3.2 and Scala 3: |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +- [Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark], |
| 61 | +- [Scala Capstone Project]. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +Additionally, we plan to experiment with alternative online learning models. |
| 64 | +So far, all our courses are self-paced and the assignments grading is fully |
| 65 | +automated. This model is perfect for autonomous learners, but we believe |
| 66 | +there is also a need for a complementary model, where learners would get |
| 67 | +code reviews from experts, and one-to-one sessions with instructors. This |
| 68 | +year, we plan to publish some of our courses under such a complementary model. |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +## Acknowledgements |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | +The Scala Center is committed to providing high-quality, free, Scala |
| 73 | +educational material. We are grateful to all the learners who pay to get |
| 74 | +certificates of completion. Our work would not be possible without your support. |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +[Functional Programming Principles in Scala]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-functional-programming |
| 77 | +[Functional Program Design]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-functional-program-design |
| 78 | +[Parallel Programming]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-parallel-programming |
| 79 | +[Programming Reactive Systems]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-akka-reactive |
| 80 | +[Effective Programming in Scala]: https://coursera.org/learn/effective-scala |
| 81 | +[Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-spark-big-data |
| 82 | +[Scala Capstone Project]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-capstone-project |
| 83 | +[rank]: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/most-popular-free-online-courses/ |
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