Free Education - OpenCourseWare

Free Education. That should be the battle cry of voters now that they have chosen their leaders over the next few days. But you can actually get a free education online. This is due to major and prestigious universities offering their courses for free – over the internet!



It’s called opencourseware or intellectual philanthropy. You can actually get an Ivy League college education or even a master’s degree by logging into the websites of these universities, read the lectures, hears or sees the lectures on video, and read the reference books and other materials. There is even a feedback mechanism. Try MIT. It has one of the best free course offerings.


How do you get to these universities? Well, buy a computer, and have a fast connection to the internet. If there are two or more of you sharing the computer, you can split the cost two or three way.



With the universities on the Internet, you have your menu of virtually unlimited options—choose the professors you want, read the books you want and jump from one course to another—journalism to engineering, management to geodetic engineering, back. There is no restriction. You can even specialize in climate change. The only limiting factor is your imagination.



Of course, on the Internet, you don’t need to cheat. If you do, you are fooling yourself. Did you know that majority of students in UPNG cheat? Even in the exams in their ethics class, they cheat.



With Universities and College education here has become so expensive; parents of students need a public office or a similarly remunerative racket (not drugs, please!) just to support their children.



I know can study my Japanese again and take up German language also. Oh…I’m also trying my hands on Electrical Engineering and Computer science!



Anyway, thanks to the world becoming flat, finally, premium education is universal. Accessible to all. For free.



News
01 Jun 2007 // Logging into learning.Read more on The Hindu Business Line
21 May 2007 // Top Universities Offer Free Lectures Online. Read more on KGO-TV
15 May 2007 // State colleges may offer free course materials.Read more on HJNews.com
22 Apr 2007 // MIT OpenCourseWare nears completion.Read more on insidevandy
15 Apr 2007 // MIT OCW named one of America's 100 best for 2007.Read more...
10 Apr 2007 // Wanted: Single Standard for Open-Content Licenses.Read more on eSchool News Online
10 Apr 2007 // Free MIT Course Materials and Supply Chain Seminars.Read more on EDN
09 Apr 2007 // Public eduCommons Demo.Read more on Iterating Toward Openness
04 Apr 2007 // Extraction Action.Read more on The Chronicle of Higher Education
04 Apr 2007 // MIT Courses, Now in Chinese.Read more on The Chronicle of Higher Education
04 Apr 2007 // UC Irvine launches Free Online Financial Planning Course.Read more on American Digital Networks
03 Apr 2007 // MIT OpenCourseWare selected as one of the top 300 Political Science Web resources.Read more...
03 Apr 2007 // Open Education 2007: Conference Call for Papers.Read more on Iterating Toward Openness
02 Apr 2007 // Open Content Learning Portal Debuts.Read more on eSchool News Online