Free Learning

February 23, 2006 10:11 AM

MIT World (not the same as OpenCourseWare). And don't miss LSE, CMU, and Connexions. Still bored? Don't forget ResearchChannel, Vega, and Wikiversity. Do you care for psychology, biology, geology, or math? Or maybe you prefer journals, papers, textbooks, or podcasts? Knowledge is useful and wonderful.
posted by foraneagle2 (27 comments total)

See also transcripts and audio of the RSA's lectures. Including, starting in the next 15 minutes, the "RSA Economist Debate - The internet's golden age is over"
posted by patricio at 10:19 AM on February 23, 2006

MITs open courseware is great, but I'd like to see something like a course program that someone would actually take. There are hundreds of classes available, but you need to know what you're doing already to take advantage of them.

Does MITWorld provide something like this?
posted by delmoi at 10:22 AM on February 23, 2006

Hmm, MITWorld is just a bunch of videos, which could be interesting, but not enough to give yourself a degree's worth of knowledge.
posted by delmoi at 10:23 AM on February 23, 2006

for someone who couldn't hack the campus lifestyle, and for whom the classroom setting is a nausea-inducing nightmare, yet still yearns for higher education, this is wonderful. thank you!

/me learns.
posted by carsonb at 10:25 AM on February 23, 2006

the opencourseware link is a bit off, alas.
posted by carsonb at 10:27 AM on February 23, 2006

There are some pretty great people giving talks in those links. Thanks.
posted by srboisvert at 10:28 AM on February 23, 2006

Definitely below par. Thanks, foraneagle2.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:31 AM on February 23, 2006

link correction: OpenCourseWare
posted by foraneagle2 at 10:31 AM on February 23, 2006

I'm trying to decide which is dorkier/makes you smell worse: learning from CMU this way, or actually going there. I think it depends on whether or not you use Linux.

And they don't have anything about music. Rip-off artists!
posted by ludwig_van at 10:38 AM on February 23, 2006

I did a doubletake when the opencourseware link resulted in my being redirected to Microsoft's web site. The terms "Microsoft" and "open" don't even belong in the same state.
posted by clevershark at 10:39 AM on February 23, 2006

Nice set of links. There's a lecture by Scorsese about filmmaking at the Princeton link. I've not listened yet, but I will, oh, I will.
posted by OmieWise at 10:56 AM on February 23, 2006

additional links (not mentioned above):
mediasite
merlot
stingy scholar
posted by ejaned8 at 11:16 AM on February 23, 2006

as a cmu-attending non-dork, and someone who has taken a CMU OLI online course, i can confirm, neither is dorky.


unless... you are a computer science major.
posted by yevge at 11:26 AM on February 23, 2006

I thought the Open CourseWare idea was a great one when i first came upon it. But then try clicking on some of those courses and you may find the type of material being offered is pretty thin. Thin and disappointing.
posted by storybored at 11:39 AM on February 23, 2006

i can confirm, neither is dorky.

unless... you are a computer science major.

Oh, I think it's worse than that my friend. You're going too easy on the IS, physics, MechE, ECE, ChemE, and math tools.

But I'm a BHA in music and writing, so I'm cool.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:56 AM on February 23, 2006

the type of material being offered is pretty thin.

This is highly dependent on the class. At the thin end are the professors who basically use it as they would any other course website - so, incomplete and infrequently updated. What OCW is for, and does well when that's what the professor wants, is for classes where everything goes online: problem sets, solutions, special lectures, everything. They even have liaisons that work on individual classes, attend, take notes and pictures, etc. (one example of a complete class is one that I work with called D-Lab, on the role of technology in international development).
posted by whatzit at 12:09 PM on February 23, 2006

Also: Berkeley podcasts.
posted by easternblot at 2:55 PM on February 23, 2006

That Berkeley link is fantastic. There goes all my free time.
posted by srboisvert at 3:20 PM on February 23, 2006

Berkeley podcasts? Berkeley podcasts?? Berkeley podcasts ???

Ohhhhh noooooo. It just happened. I just realized: There is a reason for me to get an iPod. Damn.
posted by melixxa600 at 8:05 PM on February 23, 2006

foraneagle2. wins.

flawless victory.
posted by ilovemytoaster at 8:47 PM on February 23, 2006

A really ugly list cutnpaste from a text file of some free online education sites

Berkley podcasts
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/
Merlot
http://www.merlot.org/Home.po
Search engine for online presentations
http://mediasite.com/
MIT video lectures
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video_index.php
Princeton event videos
http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/
Research event channels - lots of videos
http://www.researchchannel.org/program/stitles.asp
Edge video
http://www.edge.org/edge_video.html
The Teaching Company
http://www.teach12.com
Annenberg Classes
http://www.learner.org/view_programs/view.programs.html
Modern Scholar
http://www.recordedbooks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=scholar.home
Booknotes, the CSPAN show, 15 years of book interviews
http://www.booknotes.org/archives/
Talking History - audio shows of historians/authors
http://www.talkinghistory.org/index.html
Conversations w/ history
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/
BBC in our time - great history shows
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/index.shtml
Purdue University Boilercast.. complete audio lectures of select classes.
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44716
Princeton - free audio lectures from universities around the world
http://uc.princeton.edu/main/index.php
Haven U. free select lectures
http://www.havenscenter.org/audio/audio.htm
Stanford iTunes - free lectures etc..
http://itunes.stanford.edu/
Fathom - tons of free online seminars and courses from many universities
http://www.fathom.com/
Wired for Books
http://www.wiredforbooks.org/
posted by stbalbach at 10:39 PM on February 23, 2006 [2 favorites]

This is highly dependent on the class. At the thin end are the professors who basically use it as they would any other course website

That's exactly the problem with the Open Courseware site. Most are not worth clicking on. What they're missing is a rating system so that people can go directly to the ones that are worthwhile (e.g. like Merlot).
posted by storybored at 8:37 AM on February 24, 2006

Easternblot that Berkeley podcast page is great. Just finished listening to The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Greeeat stuff!
posted by storybored at 9:46 AM on February 24, 2006

Brilliant! Thank you so much for this! I've been collecting resources on alternative education and this comes in really handy.
posted by divabat at 7:38 AM on February 26, 2006

Great list. Thanks for all!
posted by DeeJayK at 8:28 AM on March 3, 2006

Thanks to Christopher Sessums for organizing these links!
posted by foraneagle2 at 8:39 PM on March 7, 2006

Check out this list of podcasts, webcasts & OCWs from the Stingy Scholar.
posted by BigBrownBear at 2:40 PM on March 14, 2006