The world’s most prestigious universities have begun posting entire curricula on the Web—for free. Is there such a thing as a free higher-education lunch? I enrolled to find out
Posted 09.01.2009 at 11:40 am
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I wrote to Carson in a panic, and he broke the news to me. Only 79 of the OCW courses come with video lectures (another 22 come with audio). The program was intended as a print-based initiative; whether to add video was the professor's call. In essence, mine would be a lab class without the labs. I bit into the curriculum anyway. The class on bread obliged me to investigate the science of yeast, thought to be the oldest industrial biological agent. My curiosity piqued, I spent an entire afternoon bouncing around the Web reading about baking science.
Yeast cells coming to life are biochemistry in action. I tested the process by making a yeast air balloon, just like the students in the real class. I mixed yeast, sugar and water in a bottle and watched as the carbon dioxide given off inflated a balloon affixed to the neck. It was amateur science, sure, but it was science. And in the end I got something useful: some challah that my girlfriend, an aficionado of toast, declared the best bread she'd had all year. I began to look forward to each kitchen chemistry "class," and by the last week of my experiment I had made my pancakes fluffier, attempted my first stew and my first pie, understood for the first time how baking soda works, and learned what an emulsion is. I even made a soft, lemony cheese. In the kitchen, at least, I was an improved person thanks to self-directed study.
Romanian was also proving a success. By the final week of my month-long experiment, I could meet and greet people in a Bucharest of my imagination, bargain a cabbie from 10 lei to 5 (though if he argued, I'd be stuck), and identify 16 different animals, including an eagle (the word, oddly enough, is vultur).
My foray into computer science, on the other hand, was only moderately better than the physics debacle. I started with the grand ambition of building an iPhone app, but the online Stanford University course I was considering required you to possess "C language and programming experience at the level of 106B or X." I had no idea what these things meant, so I changed my mind. After spending two weeks of my "term" shopping for a new course (hey, no registration deadline here), I settled on trying to learn an old, elementary programming language called Logo. As one Logo site declared: So simple a child can do it!
Or me. A message board led me to a Logo class built by a generous British man. I downloaded the simple software and in minutes had mastered the first tutorial, which involved learning to direct a small turtle around the screen using simple commands. I could make squares, triangles and combinations of the two. I could also use Logo to complete equations both simple (addition) and more complex (trigonometric functions). A few tutorials later, I was making the program speak. It wasn't long, though, before terms like "data types and values" and "flow control" crept into the syllabus and I felt myself falling behind, wishing I could raise my hand and ask someone to explain it to me. By the second or third lesson I was getting the dreads, and for days after I avoided it entirely, procrastinating by any means necessary, including Romanian.
My failure to keep up with even basic science courses told me something I already knew, which is that I'm a writer, not a scientist or programmer. And that leads me to the first of a few Free Online School Rules I'd learned by the end of my experiment:
1. You get what you pay for. "Free" means no asking questions in the middle of class, which can be a dealbreaker with a subject as potentially confusing as physics.
2. That said, it might help if you actually buy the textbook.
3. Free online learning is not going to teach you anything substantial overnight, or in a week (unless you are Rain Man, in which case you're just memorizing anyway). Plan to do a whole course.
4. There are few things better than hot bread made with your own two hands, especially when you understand the science of why it's so delicious.
5. We are at the beginning of this experiment, not the end.
"You know where we're heading with this," says Shigeru Miyagawa, who believes that OCW has enriched current students and faculty, enhanced MIT's reputation as an institution at the forefront of innovation, and provided an invaluable opportunity to show off its smarts to those prospective geniuses that top schools fight for. "You can already see it. You" -- here he means an institution -- "can't afford not to do OCW. I foresee that in five years, all major institutions will be opening courses to let the world see what they do. It's a no-brainer, right?"
On the next page, our guide to the best places to learn on the web.
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I love MIT on youtube, I watch it all the time. My favorite is Aircraft Systems Engineering which is all about the development of the space shuttle with lectures by many of the people who developed it. Oh and you can ask questions, the youtube community that watches these video's often respond to your queries.
holy crap i'm going back to school. well not school but home computer screen school!
this is a good thing, distribute fine education on a massive scale and you end up accelerating progress.
this is exactly what the world needs right now.
no i'm not being sarcastic.
So why can't a real university establish a program based on MIT's lectures quiz's and exams but without suffering the enormous cost in buildings and salaries. Graduate student assistance and labs following the course content could be provided at a minimal cost.
Graduates could write state or federal level professional exams for PE type standing. A competition could be held to compare the skill of real MIT grads to off campus graduates.
An excellent way to give poor and 2nd 3rd world students an education and recognition they could only dream of. Seems like a huge waste to have every school in the world duplicating the efforts of the best and brightest at MIT.
I definitely saw this same information on the NYTimes blog, but I don't think that online learning should replace classroom interaction. I think that it should facilitate the learning experience and replace tutoring. I believe sites like Thinkwell and MindBites are the future of tutoring and will replace test preparation schools like Kaplan and Sylavan Learning and The Princeton Review. MindBites offers individual lessons on specific subjects for a small fee of $0.99 while The Princeton Review makes you pay for a full course overview. Judge for yourself: mindbites.com/category/5-education
Education expenses is really depressing. Especially today, I am experiencing hardship to send my children to school because our income fluctuated badly. I used to have cash advance to sustain the daily needs of my family. At the same time working so hard.
here is the link to apply online: http://personalmoneystore.com/Cash-Advance/
i hate school. why couldnt they think of something else
What! No Football!
I Google Everything. Anything you could possibly want to know has been exploited on the internet one way or another.
Not just intellectual information but even the all the pointless stuff. Anything else you can theorize and then get all the similar variable's of truth on the internet to support your logic.
Learning by yourself allows you to do things your own way that may not have been done before, possibly resulting in a more efficient way of learning. Being self taught is a great way to learn. Learning how to do things whether its hands on skill, or observing another beings technique.
I want to learn as much about nature as possible. So I pragmatically theorize about the most common anomaly's to life. Example : Existence of All Matter existing Within the Gamma Gradient radiated energy, including the X-ray and Ultra Violet spectrum's. To find some answers I will Google others thoughts on the subject, by searching for the subject itself.
Learning new words and new definitions I gain Understanding and then I express my understanding and debate in order to get an answer or somewhere closer.
The Internet has been the most important technological advantage to mankind since the telephone. Both, being communication tools. Human Communication is Very Important, because the more we can Teach Each Other, the Faster we all get there.
Take what is Available, Give What is Not.
The information of the world's most brilliant minds is within a search engine. So Take It. If you haven't seen a concept your interested in, Post is Somewhere and you will get feedback.
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As a senior at MIT, I am not surprised that he struggled with 8.01 for several reasons.
1. It is a hard class. Many of the actual students were confused too. I know I struggled with the math.
2. No recitations! 8.01 has two or three hour long recitations a week with a professor. You work problems and ask questions. With ocw, you only get half of the instruction.
3. No textbook. The 8.01 textbook is well written, and useful. I spent many hours re-reading sections.
4. What about problem sets? They should be online as well, with solutions, but you didn't mention doing them. You actually understand the material by working problems. You would have to be some sort of mega-genius to lean without them.
5. Other students. On my hall, there is a pset party every night where the freshmen work on the 8.01/8.02 problem set together. I know I wouldn't have survived without friends who had a better understanding of the math.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Don't feel bad for "droping" the class :)
the teachers in the actual campuses MAKE SURE you know the info so they can get that piece of paper called a diploma and with computers there are methods of "cheating" if you will...so they dont give you diplomas by e-mail, insecure. As easy as that
If you live in very remote area and if you can understand english, you can learn quite a lot. Specially if you combine video lectures with torrents and other P2P technologies. But the applicability of knowledge remains mostly in the hands of politics. We need video lectures for leaders.
With education becoming more and more expensive, a lot of people are not able to afford college and pursuing an online degree may be their only chance of getting a higher education. What’s more, online education degrees are now being regarded as equal in value to their traditional, classroom counterparts. Many universities, such as the Independence University www.independence.edu , offer a wide choice of distance learning courses that you can pursue at your own pace. How much you take away from these courses will depend on how committed and honest you are to the effort.
I don't think having lectures available to view really gets you very far into a subject.
Many years ago, I studied Physics at Cambridge. But I rarely went to lectures. These were not really the important part. To be honest some of the lecturers were appalling in their delivery and just said out loud what was in the book they had published.
Tutorials and problems set for those tutorials were the bread and butter of the learning. All the material in the lectures was available in the various text books, but it was actually the individualised challenges set in the small tutorial groups of 2 or 3 students, and the feedback we got that really made the difference.
Physics is not about 'learning stuff', its about being able to 'do stuff', solve problems. We would often be asked tutorial questions that noone had the answer for yet. so learning information would not have helped.
I suspect that a similar situation exists for other subjects be it engineering or humanities, languages etc. It's the exercises that the learner goes through to learn the skill or gain the knowledge that makes the difference.
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Internet courses are very useful . I for one, never go to classes and study at home. Online courses can really help when you get stuck. Only thing you have to watch for is that the course is relevant to your studies.Anyway I think it's a great initiative.
| Written by Dimitri from Eat Healthier Foods |
I’m in my 30s and I still enjoy learning about new subjects. Online learning has given me limitless opportunities to expand my knowledge and all from the comfort of my home office. I may not be receiving any degrees but that’s not why I do it - I do it for the love of learning and that itself is priceless!
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I am sure they will have more to employ later. Good luck for the team!
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For his dynamic teaching and frequent stunts (building a human pendulum, firing golf balls at glass panels), he's been downloaded by physics enthusiasts around the globe and profiled on the front page of the New York Times as the first luminary of online open learning.www.thaicartrick.com