Open Culture » Online Courses

Bill Gates Turns EduBlogger

Dan Colman — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:55:51 +0000

This week, Bill Gates joined the rest of the world and launched his personal blog, The Gates Notes. And, without wasting any time, he started talking about an issue near and dear to my heart — the resources (both paid and free) available to lifelong learners everywhere. In a very down-to-earth kind of way, Gates gives you the lowdown on two courses he recently purchased from The Teaching Company. If you regularly visit Open Culture, you know that I, too, am a fan of The Teaching Company’s service. They travel across the US, and record great professors lecturing on great topics. At last count, I have purchased 24 of their courses over the past three years (all as mp3 downloads), even while consuming many free courses available on the web. (See our online collection of Free Courses.) Anyway, I digress. It’s good to share the edublog space with Mr. Gates, even for a day. You can track him at the gatesnotes.com. Thanks Richard for the fyi on this.

Bill Gates Turns EduBlogger is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Understanding Financial Markets

Dan Colman — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:26:31 +0000

Robert Shiller, who predicted the stock market crash earlier this decade and the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008, has a unique understanding of the financial markets and behavioral economics. In this free course provided by Yale University, Shiller demystifies the financial markets and explains “the theory of finance and its relation to the history, the strengths and imperfections of such institutions as banking, insurance, securities, futures, and other derivatives markets, and the future of these institutions over the next century.” It’s a course for our shaky financial times. The first lecture appears above, and the full course can be accessed on YouTube, iTunes and Yale’s web site. The course is also listed in our meta collection of Free Courses and our targeted selection of Free Economics Courses.

Understanding Financial Markets is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Learn Anything Online for Free: A Primer

Dan Colman — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:41:14 +0000

If you’re completely new to the concept of “open” courses, then this primer is worth a good look. The new edition of the AARP Bulletin (which targets millions of Americans over the age of 50) tells you where to find open courses, what software you might need, how to store files, etc. We get a little mention here, and if you’re visiting from AARP, I would encourage you to delve into our large collection of free courses from top universities. (It currently features over 250 courses.) Our collections of free audio books, free foreign language lessons, free e-books, free online movies, educational video sites, and smart YouTube channels will also be of interest. Some of these collections also appear on our free iPhone app.

For more Open Culture, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Learn Anything Online for Free: A Primer is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Learn to Play Instruments (and Also Some Music Theory) Online

Free Courses Now Easier to Find

Dan Colman — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:20:42 +0000

Just a quick note: our collection of Free Courses from top universities was getting a bit long, pushing toward 275 courses. So we decided to make things a bit easier to navigate. You can now directly access individual sections of the collection. The sections are listed below, and you can otherwise find them in the “Free Courses” section of our site (located in the center vertical nav). All courses can be downloaded to your computer or mp3 player (yup, it’s a bonanza of free content), and while the collection includes many courses in audio, you will also find many in video too.

Free Courses Now Easier to Find is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Yale Adds New Batch of Free Open Courses

Dan Colman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:04:58 +0000

A quick update for you. Yale University has added its third batch of courses to its open education initiative, bringing the total number of courses to 25. (Find the complete list here.) The latest round is slightly bigger than previous ones, which bucks the trend that we’re generally seeing. (Open Courses have been in a noticeable slump for the past year.) Below, I have listed the newly added courses and provided links to iTunes, YouTube, and pages where you can download the courses in various other formats. I have also added these courses to our online collection of Free Courses from top universities. This collection now features over 250 free courses, all ready to download to your computer or mp3 player. iPhone owners can also find many other courses on our free iPhone app.

Dante in Translation – iTunes – YouTube – Download Course – Giuseppe Mazzotta
European Civilization, 1648-1945 - iTunes – YouTube – Download Course - Professor John Merriman
Freshman Organic Chemistry – iTunes – YouTube – Download Course - Professor J. Michael McBride
Global Problems of Population Growth – iTunes – YouTube – Download Course - Professor Robert Wyman
Introduction to New Testament History and Literature – iTunes – YouTube – Download Course – Professor Dale B. Martin
Introduction to Theory of Literature – iTunes – YouTube – Download Course – Professor Paul H. Fry
Listening to Music – Download Course – Professor Craig Wright
Principles of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior – iTunes – YouTube – Download Course – Professor Stephen C. Stearns
The Psychology, Biology and Politics of Food – Download Course – Professor Kelly D. Brownell
Roman Architecture – iTunes – YouTube – Download Course – Diana E. E. Kleiner

Yale Adds New Batch of Free Open Courses is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Popular Harvard Course Now Online

Dan Colman — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:57:19 +0000

We happened to mention Michael Sandel last week, and then I came across this…

Harvard University and WGBH Boston have posted online Sandel’s very popular course, “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” How popular is it? Over 14,000 Harvard students have taken this course over the past 30 years. The course takes a close look at our understanding of justice by exploring important, contemporary moral dilemmas. Is it wrong to torture? Is it always wrong to steal? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? We have posted the first lecture above. Each Sunday, a new lecture will get rolled out and you can find the new installment over at justiceharvard.org.

Note: We have added this course to our collection of Free Courses (where you will find another 250 high quality courses from top universities). It’s filed under Philosophy. You can also access these courses via our Free iPhone App.

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Popular Harvard Course Now Online is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Download Teaching Company Courses & Get 50% Off

Dan Colman — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:17:32 +0000

Folks, I happened to notice that the Teaching Company is offering 50% off its audio download courses this weekend. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a big consumer of their products. (They travel across the United States and record great professors teaching great courses.) You can get more information on their Facebook page, or start shopping from this link. The offer is good until Sunday night. In the meantime, don’t forget to become a Fan of Open Culture over on our own Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter where we tweet and retweet other culture items. Have a good long weekend.

PS While we’re on the subject of good deals, let me mention that you can get a free mp3 from Amazon. Lifehacker has the details. Check it out.

Download Teaching Company Courses & Get 50% Off is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Is OpenCourseWare Hitting the Mainstream?

Dan Colman — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:20:45 +0000

A quick news break: Time.com has released today a new list, “The 50 Best Web Sites of 2009,” and right alongside some well known brands, you’ll find Academic Earth, a new venture that aggregates high quality university video. Essentially, Academic Earth pulls together videos from top-notch universities and lets users watch them with a very user-friendly interface. And that’s why we’ve previously featured them in our popular collection: Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites. Is open courseware finally hitting the mainstream? It seems so. Congrats, Richard!

For more university courseware, check out our large collection, Free Lectures & Courses from Great Universities. Or get this university content via our free iPhone app.

Is OpenCourseWare Hitting the Mainstream? is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Yale Open Courses Now on iTunesU

Dan Colman — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:22:59 +0000

Over the past two years, Yale has released fifteen free “open courses.” Initially, these courses were only available through Yale’s web site and later YouTube. Now, they’re also accessible through iTunesU — which means that you can put these courses on your iPod with relative ease. Just click here and scroll down, and you’ll find well-produced courses that cover economics, history, literature, physics, medicine and more. Thanks to this integration with iTunes, we’ll soon be able to include these courses in the Open Culture iPhone app. If you haven’t played with it, give it a try. In the meantime, all Yale courses appear in our collection of Free Courses, featuring online classes from top universities.

Yale Open Courses Now on iTunesU is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Time Magazine Picks Favorite Open Courses

Dan Colman — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:35:50 +0000

Recently, Time Magazine ran a piece called “Logging On to the Ivy League” that tells a story we’re all familiar with here — many major universities are now recording courses and making them freely available online. (See our full list of courses here.) Somewhat ironically, the article mostly features courses from non ivy league universities (Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, etc.) But maybe I’m being too picky in mentioning that. Perhaps I should simply tell you what courses Time likes best. (These are highlighted in the print edition.) First up: the often-mentioned physics courses taught by MIT’s Walter Lewin (more on that here). Next, Martin Lewis’ course, The Geography of US Elections, which comes out of Stanford Continuing Studies (my day job). Loyal readers will remember that we featured Lewis’ course on Open Culture last fall. And then there’s Marian Diamond’s Human Anatomy course. We’ve posted the first lecture of this popular UC Berkeley course above. You can access the complete course via these links: iTunes - Feed - YouTube. Enjoy.

Time Magazine Picks Favorite Open Courses is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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