Sunday, December 30, 2007

I am taking a Political Science class at Yale, Greek Mythology at Washington University and Experimental Molecular Biology: Biotechnology at MIT

I am taking a Political Science class at Yale, Greek Mythology at Washington University and Experimental Molecular Biology: Biotechnology at MIT, all while doing a load of laundry. How do I do it?
I’m taking Open Courses at each school from the comfort of my laptop at home. And it’s FREE!
As far as my explorations have taken me, Yale has the most user-friendly and the best video lectures of any I’ve come across so far – but I’d love to know if there are other good sites!
Check out these links to find any one of at least 1,800 classes that may pique your interest. The OpenCourseWare movement was started in 2002 by MIT. And, evidently people with an intellectual curiosity from Darfur to Antartica have logged on and started learning from the crème de la crème.
Of course, these classes aren’t for credit and there are some drawbacks (such as you don’t get any feedback from your professor). But, hey, this is a great option and opportunity for anybody from a highschool student wanting to get ahead (Duke TIP is on line too!-but not free) to a retired person whose mind would like to do elder-hostel education, but his or her body or pocket-book isn’t up for the travel. Or, it’s just perfect for restless people like me that would rather do this than watch re-runs on tv during the writer’s strike.
“MIT's initiative began with the idea of giving faculty at other universities access to how professors at MIT approached teaching a subject. But after the OCW project went online, the school quickly realized it had two other huge constituencies: students at other colleges, who wanted to augment what they were learning, and "self learners," those not pursuing a formal education but interested in increasing their knowledge,” according to “How to go to MIT for free” in the Christian Science Monitor article dated Jan. 7, 2007.

http://open.yale.edu/courses/index.html

http://www.outreach.washington.edu/openuw/
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

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