Free Online Classes From Yale and Other Top Universities
Yale University
Are you a life-long learner? Well, prepare for a feast – none like you’ve ever had before. Top universities around the world, including Yale, MIT and Notre Dame, now offer free online classes you can take on your own schedule.
There are so many wonderful offerings from Yale University and the more than 50 universities around the world participating in OpenCourseWareConsortium, it becomes difficult to choose. A few examples include: How to Stage a Revolution (MIT), Finding Information in Society (Open University), Adolescence Health and Development (Johns Hopkins), Penguin Watch (University of Cape Town), Parkinson’s Disease (MIT), Crime, Heredity and Insanity in American History (Notre Dame) and Listening to Music (Yale).
If you speak another language and are worried about losing your fluency, OpenCourseWare offers classes in 12 different languages.
The mission of both the Yale and OpenCourseWare program is to “use information technology to help equalize access to knowledge and educational opportunities across the world and encourage the development and dissemination of high quality content.” Both are funded by William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park, CA.
Each Yale course offers a full set of class lectures produced in high-quality video accompanied by other course materials; i.e. syllabus, suggested readings, and problem sets. The lectures are available as downloadable videos, and an audio-only version is also offered. In addition, searchable transcripts of each lecture are provided. The offerings for the OpenCourseWare classes vary but each includes a brief biography of the instructor, syllabus, and required reading. Not all include video or audio recordings.
You will not have access to the instructor but Yale is piloting online study groups. For example, the online study group for the course on Roman Architecture has 86 members engaging in different discussion questions and posing new topics for further discussion. Neither will you gain any college credits but you are guaranteed stimulating and challenging learning opportunities in hundreds of topics from astronomy to zoology.
(Photos: Let Ideas Compete, pspechtenhauser)
Posted on 05. Oct, 2011 by Patricia in Living
