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.
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.
The folks at universitiesandcolleges.org have provided a very handy resource here. They’ve sifted through the big OpenCourseWare universe and centralized the resources for over 500 college courses. In some cases, you’ll find audio lectures. In other cases, you’ll find lecture notes, reading lists, and homework assignments. This mega list makes it easy to browse through the different resources without having to skip from one OpenCourseWare web site to another. The page must have taken quite some time to put together. Very glad that they did it.
As a last note, the U&C folks were kind enough to include our collection of Free Courses on their list. Here, you get audio (and sometimes video) lectures from over 200 courses. Simply download them to your computer or mp3 player, and you’ll be transported right to the classroom of many fine universities across the world.
I was asked by a newspaper reporter today how people, like you, are using open university courses (such as those found in our collection of Free Courses). And the truth is, I’m not always sure. So I figured, why not put the question out there and ask you. Here it goes: How are you using these courses? Are you listening to (or watching) these courses purely for personal enrichment? Or are you spending time with these courses for professional reasons? Are you trying to boost your resume/career with these courses? Also, during this recession, are these courses suddenly more attractive? Or were they attractive to you all along? Lastly, what topics do you generally tend to focus on? History? Literature? Computer Science? Physics?
Ok, folks, give a hand and let me know your thoughts. Please feel free to write your thoughts in the comments below, or write us at mail [at] openculture.com.
This week, Stanford has started to roll out a new course, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Taught by Leonard Susskind, one of America’s leading physics minds, this course is the fourth of a six-part sequence — Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum — that traces the development of modern physics, moving from Newton to Black Holes. As the title suggests, this course (which runs 20 hours in total) focuses squarely on the groundbreaking work of Albert Einstein. And, it’s undoubtedly a plus that the course was presented in Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, which means that it’s tailored to smart non-specialists like you. You can watch the first lecture on iTunes here, or YouTube below. The remaining lectures will be rolled out on a weekly basis. If you would like to watch the longer sequence of courses, I have provided a complete list of links here. Enjoy.
For lifelong learners, courses on Ancient Greece and Rome always remain in steady demand. While these courses are poorly represented in undergraduate programs (at least in the States), they seem be to making a comeback in continuing education programs designed for older students. Eventually, it seems, many come to the conclusion that you can’t skip over the foundations and still make sense of it all. And so they go back to basics.
The Teaching Company, a commercial provider of courses for lifelong learners, has recognized this demand and built a surprisingly rich collection of lectures dedicated to the Ancients. (See full catalogue here.) These courses are polished and well put together. But they cost money. If that’s a concern, then you should know about some of the free alternatives. Thanks to the “open course” movement, you can now find a series of free courses online, including some from top-ranked universities. Let me give you a quick overview of your options:
Last fall, Yale University introduced a new round of open courses that included Donald Kagan’s Introduction to Ancient Greek History (YouTube — iTunes Audio — iTunes Video- Download Course). A leading figure in the field, Kagan takes students from the Greek Dark Ages, through the rise of Sparta and Athens, The Peloponnesian War, and beyond. You’ll cover more than a millennium in 24 lectures. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Yale’s courses are high touch. And what’s particularly nice is that the course can be downloaded in one of five formats (text, audio, flash video, low bandwidth quicktime video, and high bandwidth quicktime video). Simply choose the format that works for you, and you’re good to go.
When you’ve completed the arc of Greek history, you can move next to the UC Berkeley course, The Roman Empire. The course taught by Isabelle Pafford moves from Julius Caesar to Constantine (roughly 40 BC to 300 AD) in 42 lectures. And the audio comes straight from the classroom, which means that you’ll get solid information but you’ll also have to endure some extraneous talk about homework assignments and exams. (It’s free, so don’t complain.) You can download this course in one of three ways: iTunes, streamed audio, or via rss feed. Lastly, I should note that Pafford has taught another related course at Berkeley — The Ancient Mediterranean World (iTunes — Feed- MP3s).
Once you have the big survey courses under your belt, you can switch to some more focused courses coming out of Stanford. Let’s start with Patrick Hunt’s course Hannibal (iTunes). As I’ve noted in a previous post, this podcasted course takes you inside the life and adventures of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian military tactician who maneuvered his way across the Alps and stunned Roman armies in 218 BC. The course also gives you glimpses into cutting-edge trends in modern archaeology. Because Hannibal still remains a figure of intense historical interest, it’s not surprising that this course has ranked as one of the more popular courses on iTunesU.
Another short course worth your time isVirgil’s Aeneid: Anatomy of a Classic. Presented by Susanna Braund (a Stanford classics professor at the time), the course teases apart the epic poem that was an instant when it was written 29–19 BC), and still endures today. Divided into 5 installments, each running about two hours, this podcast offers a good introduction to one of the central texts in the Latin tradition.
Finally, let me throw in a quick bonus course. The Historical Jesus, another Stanford course taught by Thomas Sheehan, looks inside the historical/Roman world of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a history course, not a religion course, and it uses the best literary and historical evidence to answer the questions: “Who was the historical Jesus of Nazareth? What did he actually say and do…? What did the man Jesus actually think of himself and of his mission…? In short, what are the differences — and continuities — between the Jesus who lived and died in history and the Christ who lives on in believers’ faith?
UPDATE: Thanks to a reader, I was reminded of another related course: 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire (iTunes — Feed — Site). These podcasts cover the legacy of the Roman Empire that emerged in the East (after it had collapsed in the West). You can read more about this course in one of my early blog posts.
All of these courses can be found in the History Section of our larger collection of Free Courses. There you will find 200 high quality online courses that you can listen to anytime, anywhere.
The Geography of US Presidential Elections keeps rolling along. With his well-crafted lectures, Martin Lewis shows you this week how America’s political map and its political parties changed dramatically following the Civil War. In the space of 90 minutes, he takes you through the Reconstruction period, The Gilded Age, the Depression, World War II and The Cold War, up through the Vietnam War.
You can download Lecture 3 via Tunes U in high resolution or watch the YouTube version below. And, as always, you can join the ongoing conversation with the professor and other students worldwide right here.
There are still two more lectures to come, including one that will offer a postmortem of next week’s election.
Lastly, if you missed the previous lectures, you can grab them on iTunes here and YouTube here.
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Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
