Merge pull request scala#435 from scala/announcing-moocs

Scala MOOCs launched! :)

Author: heathermiller

blog/_posts/2016-05-23-scala-moocs-specialization-launched.md

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+---
+layout: blog
+post-type: blog
+by: Heather Miller
+title: Three Scala courses launched on Coursera!
+---
+
+We're very happy to announce that the first 3 out of 4 courses in our Scala
+specialization have launched on Coursera! The courses available today include:
+
+- **Functional Programming Principles in Scala**: discover the elements of the functional programming style and learn how to apply them usefully in your daily programming tasks.
+- **Functional Program Design in Scala**: learn how to apply the functional programming style in the design of larger applications.
+- **Parallel Programming**: learn the fundamentals of parallel programming, from task parallelism to data parallelism.
+
+As in the past, all courses feature the much-loved automatic grading of
+programming assignments!
+
+The final course in the pipeline is _Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark_,
+which we're hoping will follow in a couple of months along with the Scala
+capstone project – a ~4 week long project designed to push you to build a
+larger, more challenging Scala application.
+
+All courses are available both for free and as part of the Scala specialization,
+which is a verified mini-degree from Coursera.
+
+<center><b><a href="https://www.coursera.org/specializations/scala">Learn more about the Scala Specialization on Coursera!</a></b></center>
+<br/>
+
+Or to enroll in each course independently (for free, but without a certificate),
+you can visit each course's landing page:
+
+- **[Functional Programming Principles in Scala](https://www.coursera.org/learn/progfun1/)**
+- **[Functional Program Design in Scala](https://www.coursera.org/learn/progfun2/)**
+- **[Parallel Programming](https://www.coursera.org/learn/parprog1/)**
+
+More info about each course can be found on the [Scala Specialization page](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/scala), or on
+the [Scala Center's website](https://scala.epfl.ch/). Questions, or to join the discussion about the Scala Center, visit us in the [Scala Center gitter channel](gitter.im/scala/center)!
+
+