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“An MIT initiative called “OpenCourseWare” makes virtually all the school’s courses available online for free – lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. (Gilbert) Strang’s Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone.”
“But it hasn’t been as clear what role – if any – elite universities would play in what experts call the “massification” of higher education. Their finances are based on prestige, which means turning students away, not enrolling more. How could they teach the masses without diminishing the value of their degree?”
Just a couple of parts of an interesting WIRED News read. It reminds me of some of the YouTube channels universities are putting together. Here’s UC Berkley’s for example (mentioned in the Wired article as well) where on the lower right, their playlists feature actual course excerpts, about Biology, Physics, and Search Engines (among others).
The article also mentioned iTunesU which features seminars and lectures, worth a look. It includes not only participating universities’ stuff, but public broadcasting articles from NPR affiliates among others.
So all that said, higher education online keeps rolling forward.
On a recent business trip, a conversation inspired a participant to voice that they’ve been in “green fatigue”, where everyone is touting they’re green. I responded that I can understand that feeling, but that within the upcoming years, it’ll continue but morph to “just business”, much like the “e” everything in the 90s and early 2000s are now just the way we do business, with the one constant being the presence of change. The much publicized story of Al Gore joining KPC&B to inspire and expand the “clean-tech” investments worldwide show this trend will continue and grow as more money flows that way, and another example will be written in history books on how progressives blared the horn and capitalists, with their free-market assertions, jump on the wave to increase its steam.
So all that said, Care2.com’s article “Resolution: Be Green in 2008″ caught my eye and attention. Which foods are highest in pesticide use? Hazardous chemicals in make-up and perfume? Reminders about CFLs among others included. Worth a look and consideration.
