
Stanford To Offer Free CS and Robotics Courses - nickb
http://www.deviceguru.com/2008/09/17/stanford-frees-cs-robotics-courses/
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pkrumins
I have been blogging about free education

for more than 2 years now. I have collected

hundreds of video courses from universities

around the world on my blog:

<http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com>

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netcan
_The courses are nearly identical to what’s offered to enrolled Stanford
students, according to the University. However, those taking courses through
SEE are not eligible to receive Stanford credit for them._

Are traditional universities the way education can be made freely available?

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aneesh
I'd say yes. Traditional universities are the best equipped to make this
curriculum freely available, and the web is making it easier and easier to do
so. As a side note, I think Omnisio would be _fantastic_ as a way for students
to annotate lecture videos, and ask each other questions.

MIT has taken the lead in a huge way with OpenCourseWare (ocw.mit.edu), and
even without other schools following, that is a sizeable corpus of educational
material for the avid student.

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netcan
I agree on the 'best equipped' note. They have the knowledge, resources,
materials & experience necessary but. They'd potentially be their own undoing.

The problem is conflict of interests.

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aneesh
It depends. I don't think anyone sees OCW as a substitute for going to school
at MIT.

I'd also argue that universities serve other roles beyond education.
Universities are gatekeepers, and your degree has signaling value that free
online classes never would give you. Further, the exchange of ideas &
friendships developed on a real college campus are nearly impossible to
duplicate when delivering free educational content online.

~~~
netcan
_It depends. I don't think anyone sees OCW as a substitute for going to school
at MIT._

That's the whole point. If it were successful, it would be (a substitute).
What you are saying is that it isn't a problem, because it's' not too
successful.

 _I'd also argue that universities serve other roles beyond education._

Education is what pins it all together. Imagine a future where degrees are not
University centred, courses are available online & testing/evaluation is gets
solved separately from the institutions. For one thing, filtering is not
necessary. There's infinite room in every degree so if any filtering is done,
it needs to be done as part of the testing/evaluation. Universities are a
shell in this world. Parents are not likely to cough up the $$ they do
currently, for students to make friends.

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aneesh
_If it were successful, it would be (a substitute)._

I disagree with that definition of success. OCW is very successful -- its goal
is fundamentally different from the degree-granting part of MIT.

Success for OCW means that everyone who wants to access university-level
content can do it for free. If MIT wants to charge tuition for the "premium"
version where you live on campus, can ask questions of the professors, get to
know your classmates, get a degree, etc, then they certainly have the right
to. That is a scarce resource, and can command a price like many other scarce
resources people pay for.

~~~
netcan
_I disagree with that definition of success._

Fair enough, but I hope it's not just a matter of semantics. My definition of
the success for making educational materials available is making _education_
available. The absolute goal would be 'the best education.' I admit, this is
probably not the goal of this particular project.

Universities have an inherent interest in maintaining a big enough gap between
free & premium education.

It seems to me that you're objections are base on an assumption that education
cannot be acquired outside of institutions with an equivalent quality or ease.
No chance. Universities don't have to worry about that, so no conflict.

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thegoleffect
> Each course comprises downloadable video lectures, handouts, assignments,
> exams, and transcripts.

This isn't all that much different from a textbook, is it? The free aspect is
cool but so is Wikipedia.

Being able to ask questions to someone who thoroughly understands a subject
would probably make a bigger impact on a person's education.

~~~
aneesh
I think you're missing the point. Of course being able to ask questions would
make a much bigger impact. That's why people go to school. This is not meant
to replace that.

> "This isn't all that much different from a textbook, is it?"

1) Video. 2) Textbooks aren't free. 3) Wikipedia isn't organized into bite-
sized lectures, and doesn't include ways to evaluate yourself. Wikipedia is a
quick reference, not a comprehensive guide.

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schtog
Wow how awesome isn't this? Major props to MIT and Stanford for pushing making
knowledge available to everyone.

A lot of universities don't even offer courses like this and here you get it
for free.

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sown
I'd like 2 things to come out of this

1.) Some kind of lab support. I could buy a kit and go along and build what
ever simultaneously with the class I'm following.

2.) an automated way of seeing how well I'm doing. A test giver/grading.

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Prrometheus
Has anyone gotten the programs for CS106A to run under Eclipse in Linux or
gotten the special Stanford version of Eclipse to run in Linux x64?

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nazgulnarsil
it would be nice t have a torrent of all the lectures for a given course +
materials together.

