The second meeting I attended on Monday was a really interesting and eye opening conference about the Open Course Ware movement at MIT. We were lucky enough to have Steve Carson from MIT speak to us about the creation and implementation about the system as well as its growth and effect on the world of online learning. Before attending the conference on an Adobe conference site ( very user friendly and super clear video), we read two articles about the system and have to formulate two questions. My main question through the realign and the conference was, day by day I am learning about the power and effectiveness of online learning but, what happens when the day comes and the whole college is experience is eliminated because you no longer need to go to school at all? This bothered me while reading about the program, and then I read an article about how Yale, one of our most prestigious universities will not use open course ware because they feel like their students will not truly be a part of the Yale experience if they are obtaining their degrees from the other side of the world. What happens when we lose all human to human contact in the classroom, even a College one? Curtis, the other speaker present at the conference explained that their are many cases where student cannot attended class regularly due to outside circumstances. Would I deny learning to my students because they couldn't get to school? The answer would be a resounding no, but that being said, watching a class on the computer screen will never be the same for me.
Open Course Ware is a free, user friendly service that is available at numerous universities and countries around the world. The only downside from using this system is that it is non credited.
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