Attend classes at Yale via YouTube
A few weeks ago it came to my attention that some colleges and universities were uploading entire course lectures onto YouTube, an act that struck me as one of the more phenomenal developments of the internet age. To think that now some poor kid living in a slum a world away, or a poor kid growing up on the bayou for that matter, or just anyone interesting in increasing the scope of their knowledge, now has access to a world class education via an internet connection is truly remarkable. YouTube has organized a collection of college lectures here at YouTube.edu.
Personally I've listened to a few of the lectures offered by Yale University, specifically those from Professor Amy Hungerford's class examining the American novel in the 20th century after 1945, and found them to be enjoyable. Here's the introductory class in that particular series...
My only wish is that they examined A Confederacy Of Dunces in the class.
6 comments:
I hear you. A Confederacy of Dunces is pure genius.
This is why Harvard people can make so much fun of Yale. They manage to dilute their brand every chance they get. It's like they never heard of this thing called an internal server or are too cheap to maintain one.
Ah someone from Harvard is bitter that they didn't think of it first. FYI, if you bothered to follow the link, you'd see that Yale does post these on their own server (http://oyc.yale.edu/). They also cross-post them to youtube for maximum exposure - which makes them accessible to someone who might not ever find them on the Yale website. But I suspect a Harvard snob doesn't think about making things convenient for the masses - how plebian. *eyeroll*
This is a wonderful idea. I'm a Harvard alum and a friend of the director of the undergrad college's media services department. I sent him the link to your post because I found it so interesting; personally I hope Harvard follows Yale's example. Higher ed is such a precious and, unfortunately, expensive and unattainable goal for so many that it would be a shame not to make their teachings as widely available as possible. Until then, Harvard's online offerings are found here: http://athome.harvard.edu/
I love this, and can't wait to view one or more of these.
FYI, there is an application named Videobox (for Mac) that allows you to save youtube videos as Quicktime files to save in iTunes, so you can load them onto an iPod.
Who knows, maybe there will be a whole course on Confederacy some day. . .
yeah 'cause i'm sure the people living in slums have access to a computer and the literary skills to use them.
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