Let’s begin with the concept of OpenCourseWare (OCW). Often described as a movement, OCW adheres to the following principles:
Until recently, I was not familiar with this term. That is, until I started looking into the idea because I had heard about such free online courses offered by universities in various news headlines and overheard conversations. It turns out the one of the first and best OCW resources available is offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) and that is the listed resource we have on offer in the Resources section of our website www.dospace.org. In addition, M.I.T. have a WordPress blog you can visit here.
For M.I.T the focus is on empowering minds and unlocking opportunities. To quote from their website: “MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity”. Unsurprisingly, amongst the top most visited courses on their website include: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Circuits and Electronics – subjects we encourage people to learn about and explore with our facilities at Do Space.
M.I.T OCW is also great for those who feel they have potentially missed out on learning subject matter during their high school and tertiary education due to other educational priorities, or indeed for those who are just curious. Most of the content is at an undergraduate level so it can be undertaken by almost anyone whilst also providing a challenge. In order to cater to the various types of learners out there course content consists of video lectures, subtitles/transcript, online textbooks, assignments and Solutions, exams and solutions and recitation videos. The content is free to all provided you have a good internet connection to help with video lectures, and if not, head to Do Space so you can use ours!
Sean is an Australian abroad. He is living in Omaha and working at Do Space as a part-time technologist with the desire to gain a valuable insight into U.S. community and culture. Sean has embraced his role at Do Space by combining his enthusiasm for technology with his various backgrounds as a tradesman, audio-visual technician and graduate of International Studies. You may have seen him at the tech desk or conducting classes in the 3D lab.
