Archive for the ‘Open Education’ Category

Jolie O’Dell at Mashable rounds up some great online courses, webcasts, forums, and tutorials in 4 Free Ways to Learn to Code Online. If you’ve been considering learning a programming language but don’t know where to start, this is a post you won’t want to miss. I’ll be heading to Mozilla’s School of Webcraft to check out their jQuery courses, and maybe a few more!

Yury Lifshits at Mashable creates a mega-list of 100+ Online Resources That Are Transforming Education. This jam-packed article takes a look at nine types of educational technology that are making on impact today.

1. New Institutions
2. Learning Management
3. Online Content
4. Networks and Marketplaces
5. Live Training and Tutoring
6. Learner Tools
7. Collaborative Learning
8. Funding and Payments
9. Hardware for Education

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

The folks at the University of Phoenix Blog have gathered the Top 10 “Big Ideas” in Education. This succinct article discusses the most innovative trends having an impact on education today. Here are the ten ideas examined in the full post:

1. Teaching to Understand, Not Just to Memorize
2. Students Grading Teachers
3. Free Education
4. Supplemental Courses
5. Shifting Routines
6. Sleeping In
7. Educating the Individual
8. Studying Smarter
9. Considering Brain Function
10. Encouraging Creativity

Dave Drager at MakeUseOf creates a stellar list of 8 Awesome Websites to Take Free College Courses Online. All of these look good, with MIT’s OpenCourseware as the most impressive, offering 2,000 high-quality courses for free online.

Online Colleges & Universities gathers up 50 Excellent Open Courses on Teaching With Technology. This is a mega-list of free courses on how to use technology such as blogs, wikis, instructional gaming, and more to reach out and engage students. It is divided into the following categories:

• Technology and Learning
• Online Education and Distance Learning
• Tech Tutorials
• Secondary and Higher Education

The folks at Educause have put together a new “7 Things” guide, covering 7 Things You Should Know About LMS Alternatives. As usual, the quick reference source answers the following questions, this time about Learning Management Systems:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?

The folks at Educause have put together another of their stellar guides, this time on open educational resources in 7 Things to Know About OER. They tackle the usual questions:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?

DIY Learning has compiled a mega-list of colleges and universities which are offering free courses in Top 50 University Open Courseware Collections. These incredibly useful course offerings are divided into the following categories:

• Academic Behemoths
• Ivy League
• Western Institutions
• Colonial
• Midwestern Institutions
• United Kingdom
• International
• Purely Online
• Less Known, Equally Useful

Linda at Sir Learnalot’s Knowledge Blog has posted a list of the World’s 50 Best Open Courseware Collections. The list is divided into the following categories:

• American University and College Collections
• UK, Canadian and Australian Initiatives
• University Streaming Media
• Other Tools

OnlineCourses.org has compiled a mega-list of 100 Incredible Open Courses for the Ultimate Tech Geek. This comprehensive guide presents 100 free resources to develop your tech skill set. The courses are divided into the following categories:

• Computer Science and Engineering
• Computer Security
• Programming
• The Web
• Software
• Information Technology
• Communication Technology
• Technology in Education
• Tech Math
• Technology and Society

The Online Classes website has put together a mega-list of 100 Free Tools to Tutor Yourself in Anything. Find a wide range of free classes and tutorials in the following categories in this helpful post:

• General
• Language
• Music
• Life Skills
• Around the House
• Technology
• General Academic
• Business
• Health and Fitness
• Math and Science
• Liberal Arts
• Fine Arts

Guy McDowell at MakeUseOf rounds up 5 Great Sites with Free Video Lectures from Top Colleges. These are all websites with university-level lectures from top institutions such as MIT, McGill, Oxford, and more.

Sarah Russel at BestCollegesOnline compiles a mega-list of 50 Excellent Open Courses for Techie Librarians. This guide to free online courses includes the following areas of study:

• Open Source
• Information & Research
• Engagement
• Technology
• Books & Writing
• Law
• Education
• Communication
• Operations

A new online portal called Academic Earth has aggregated the video lectures available from universities such as MIT, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley. According to The Bivings Report they plan to roll out many social features for users over the next couple of months. Another good place to look for open courseware and lecture materials is the Open Courseware Consortium where you can browse or Google across the collections of the 200 international universities who provide OCW.