Harvard Open Source Courseware

mpawlo writes "Gnuheter reports that the Berkman Center for Internet and Society releases the H20 courseware software as open source. Two years and 1 million USD are invested in the software so far... The software has been tested at Harvard Law School, but should be suitable for other disciplines than law."

1 million dollars????

[banka]

I checked the site out and it seems nothing more than a glorified message board.

Someone, please enlighten my ignorant soul and tell me what makes this software so special?

mmm

[cultobill]

I think that learning-via-the-internet is a "killer app" for rural areas. I go to a engineering school, and we use this piece of shite called "WebCT". It is bad enough that no one wants to use it. The few (cruel) teachers that use it have a good thing going though. Homework via a webpage, instant grading (for things like Physics), and the theoretical ability to take a class from somewhere off campus.

I would kill for the ability to take some classes remotely over the summer. Though nothing replaces a real teacher, there are some subjects that could do it.

Also, this would mean worlds of difference for people outside the big cities. The ability to start a degree while living in some-godawful-place, NM could mean the difference between living your life in said godawful-place, and being able to get out if you wanted.

The real question is, will people use it? Or will distance-learning stay the toy of masters students?

A Social Leveller?

[otisaardvark]

This is really interesting to see. With projects like this off the ground advanced material is made available for free to huge swathes of the globe who wouldn't previously have access.

Could internet teaching methods promote a global meritocracy (at least academically) which is truly fair?

I suppose the answer is not quite (e.g. all material is presumably English only, and only those relatively rich enough to be able to buy some internet time will benefit) but this idea could given time really develop those with potential but without opportunity at present.

I would love to see an extension to the scientific disciplines.

learning

[More Trouble]

Of course, none of the apps people have mentioned here are particularly pedagogical. The best listed are collaborative discussion systems. Big whoop. So's Slashdot, and we're not learning much here.

There are, however, many applications built for learners. They just all happen to focus on teaching a small number of specific ideas. Good examples are World Watcher [northwestern.edu] for teaching climatology and SimCalc [umassd.edu] for teaching Calculus to middle schoolers.

Writing small applications for teaching in a limited domain is just not sexy enough to get headlines or grants.

:w