A DL Committee member, Patrick Ianniello, forwarded an article about Obama's new program to fund community colleges to create and provide free online courses. The initiative is being designed to provide courses that " link basic skills education to job training." Some may see this as a death warrant: what? Free classes? Why would students pay for classes at traditional colleges? But instead, I think it's a step forward. This will produce students who are more likely to have experience taking an on-line course. Further, from the Insider Higher Ed article, it appears the focus of these courses is basic skills. Again, I see this as an advantage for preparing students for higher education.
Thanks Patrick for sending this! http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/ccplan
Apparently, MIT has been doing this for a decade! Almost ALL of MIT's undergraduate materials are available on their OpenCourseWare site: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm. MIT envisions this as the "modern version of books."
They have their own YouTube Channel, and the opening video outlines the project, from academic, intellectual and practical purposes. http://www.youtube.com/mit
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