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Internet opens elite colleges to all
AP ^ | Dec 29 | JUSTIN POPE

Posted on 12/30/2007 1:02:43 AM PST by Aristotelian

Gilbert Strang is a quiet man with a rare talent: helping others understand linear algebra. He's written a half-dozen popular college textbooks, and for years a few hundred students at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been privileged to take his course.

Recently, with the growth of computer science, demand to understand linear algebra has surged. But so has the number of students Strang can teach.

An MIT initiative called "OpenCourseWare" makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free — lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. 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.

(snip)

More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware. You no longer need a Princeton ID to hear the prominent guests who speak regularly on campus, just an Internet connection. This month, Yale announced it would make material from seven popular courses available online, with 30 more to follow.

As with many technology trends, new services and platforms are driving change. Last spring marked the debut of "iTunes U," a section of Apple's popular music and video downloading service now publicly hosting free material from 28 colleges. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley recently announced it would be the first to make full course lectures available on YouTube. Berkeley was already posting lectures, but YouTube has dramatically expanded their reach.

If there isn't yet something for everyone, it's only a matter of time. On iTunes, popular recent downloads include a climate change panel at Stanford, lectures on existentialism by Cal-Berkeley professor Hubert Dreyfus, and a performance of Mozart's requiem by the Duke Chapel Choir. Berkeley's offerings include 48 classes.

http://ocw.mit.edu

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: distancelearning; highereducation; mit
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To: RKBA Democrat

Libertarian does not equal libertine.


41 posted on 12/31/2007 5:19:45 AM PST by webstersII
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To: webstersII

“Libertarian does not equal libertine.”

Philosophically speaking, I would agree with you. In practice, though, the two terms tend to be synonymous.


42 posted on 12/31/2007 10:25:27 AM PST by RKBA Democrat (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!)
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To: Do the math
He can make difficult mathematics easy to understand. You are correct, he is a great teacher.

I agree. I watched Strang's first lecture. It was very easy to follow and usually anticipate where he was going. He reminds me of my favorite professor in college (an MIT grad) who made advanced calculus and differential equations a breeze.

43 posted on 01/01/2008 1:43:14 PM PST by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: RKBA Democrat

“In practice, though, the two terms tend to be synonymous.”

The Founding Fathers were the best example of true Libertarian thinkers.


44 posted on 01/01/2008 7:15:32 PM PST by webstersII
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To: webstersII

“The Founding Fathers were the best example of true Libertarian thinkers.”

Agreed. Things started heading downhill once libertarians started listening to Ayn Rand too much.


45 posted on 01/02/2008 3:48:46 PM PST by RKBA Democrat (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!)
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To: DaveLoneRanger

Great resources for homeschoolers!!!!


46 posted on 01/02/2008 4:27:31 PM PST by TruthConquers (Delendae sunt publici scholae)
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To: Aristotelian

This is indeed the Killer App of the Internet.


47 posted on 01/02/2008 4:29:15 PM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: RightWhale

That’s a great way of portraying it.


48 posted on 01/02/2008 4:30:24 PM PST by Aristotelian (Freedom is "the absence of coercion." F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 1960.)
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To: wastedyears

Can’t multiply two matrices? Keep trying, it’s good for preventing or slowing brain atrophy in old age.


49 posted on 01/02/2008 4:31:12 PM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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