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Carnegie Mellon Starts Offering Courses Online
OckNock writes "Carnegie Mellon is offering free courses through its Open Learning Initiative. Unlike MIT's OpenCourseWare which has 700 courses available, Carnegie Mellon currently only has five courses available. However, Carnegie Mellon is unique in that they offer '...courses [that] include a number of innovative online instructional components such as: cognitive tutors, virtual laboratories, group experiments, simulations,' so rather than just offering course material Carnegie Mellon is pursuing a more interactive, community approach. Carnegie Mellon is also unique in that they offer the courses as an Academic Version which '...is offered through educational institutions for credit awarded by the student's home institution.' Interestingly, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funds both MIT's OpenCourseWare and Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative ('Funding for the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon has been provided by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.') Sadly, the courses are not supported on any open source platforms or even any open source web browsers. More importantly, I'm curious how other universities will start making their courses available freely online."
"More importantly, I'm curious how other universities will start making their courses available freely online."
It's simple, they won't.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
Most of the class have at best course outlines and HW problems. Very few have lecture notes, very few have solutions to problems. Its like, whats the point?
What is more important, real attendance to school teaches you discipline, something that I believe is difficult to get via Internet. I wonder if the last thing is good or not.
It appears to me that they are simply beta testing these courses on an unsuspecting public. "Available Now: Pilot version of CSR course including Current content, Case studies and Causality Lab 1.0 Available Summer 2004: Pilot version of CSR updated with improved navigation, interactive pseudo tutors and Causality Lab 2.0 which includes a causal model exercise builder." Available Fall 2004: Actual version of CSR updated with payment module accepting PayPal and Credit Cards.
Ya know, learning for learning is fine as far as it goes. But if it doesn't come with credit for a degree, the bookstore is just as good.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Especially for those who work at traditional jobs and are unable to attend physical classes, as well as those of us whose skill sets and geographical dispersal are familiar with networking in nontraditional ways, a well architected online course can accomplish those non-course related goals that you attribute only to physical presence.
I doubt that self-paced instruction can give you that. I think that any technical course that doesn't include chat sessions, discussions of current events and collaborative projects can even provide those non-tangible benefits.
That is now my standard for any program (multi-course, certificate or degree) without that, I'd rather just read the book, thanks.
My fiance graduated from CMU, from their masters in Human Computer Interaction. She researched intelligent tutors for a while. They can make things better than 1-on-1 tutors.
The guy funding both projects from CMU & MIT, was far more impressed with CMU's program. It isn't about just lobbing material on the web; it's about teaching people.
So in this case, look for quality and not quantity.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
next to nothing. The problem is that we are proliferating our knowledge freely and that means that the value of our knowledge is worth very little since everyone now has an access to it. If I were going to CMU or MIT I'd be really pissed that someone is getting the same education as me but they're not paying $20K a year.
This is why Indians and Chinese have caught up with us and have managed to increase the supply of well educated people who will work for next to nothing.
Just great... for large corporations. We'll continue working for less and less... what's the base salary for a programmer now? $40K?
Humans have been sharing their knowledge ever since they showed each other how to start fires, how Greeks scientists would hold free lectures in their halls, since friends taught each other how to skateboard, shoot slingshots, and play basketballs, and even here on the Internet where people are free to share their unique knowledge to benefit the good of society.
What you advocate is the restriction of knowledge where only an elite few is allowed to know how to do something.. Sorta like returning to the days of pre-renaissance society where only elite church members were given the courses in reading and writing. Everyone else was forced through their own igorance to be subserviant to the elite.
People are going to have to cope with the fact that there are plenty of people who are not in our country who can become just as bright as we are and do it asking for much less money. Is this bad for us? Yes. But like every economic crisis that hits our country, we have managed to find some way to innovate and come out ahead.
Have you ever thought of finding some way to bring your self ahead of the pack? Have you considered pursuing knowledge in a different field?
I don't like what is happening to our jobs either, but I would take a lost job over your concept of restricting knowledge any day.
At PSU, where I did my Ph.D., professors were being "invited" to develop entire courses to be offered over the Internet. They would receive course development funds, extra graduate teaching assistants, and in some cases research assistants. Sounds great, right?
What wasn't entirely clear (unless you read the fine print), was that once the course was developed, Penn State owned it. They could keep giving it (for money) for all eternity, and never pay the prof another dime. The only overhead for them was the webspace and processing (pff!) and a pittance for the wage-slave grad students and adjuncts hired to slog through tons of grading, e-mail hand-holding, etc.
I don't think either of the free course programs discussed here have quite the same aims or effect, but they are still part of a larger trend.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
I have troubles imaging a system like this providing the same quality of experience as taking a real course with a professor you can talk to in person and etc.
But I shan't judge.
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