The Gift of Education

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: MITOPENCOURSEWARE (Website)

Competencies: Self-Development, Leadership, Oral and Written Communication, Financial Leadership, Technological Leadership, Strategic Problem Analysis, Influence, Negotiation, Driving Change, and many more

Who benefits? Anyone needing a college course or a university education who cannot afford either the time off and/or the costs associated with an on-site location.  Also excellent for those in out-of-the-way locations anywhere in the world.

Consultant Usage: Personal self-development; multiple uses with clients

What’s it about? This time of the year many people find joy in the giving of gifts to family, friends and associates.  Unfortunately, as many of us know, many gifts are given with wonderful intent, but with a short lifecycle.  Toys get broken or discarded; food gets eaten; beverages get consumed; clothes get worn out, hidden in the back of the closet or donated. 

Wouldn’t it be great to give a gift that lasts a lifetime?  And costs nothing.  And would be potentially life changing in a positive way?  Well maybe it is a stretch on my part, but the gift of a free world-class education is out there on the Internet just waiting for motivated users.

I am writing about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘s website: MITOPENCOURSEWARE.  Six years ago MIT set out to put all of its courses on the Internet and give it all away.  As of December, 2007, more than 1,800 MIT courses are available to any interested person, anywhere in the world, at no cost. 

Before I share with you what is available, let me put out the disclaimers.  You don’t get a degree or a certificate.  You don’t get a grade.  You don’t get access to the instructors.  All they offer you is an education!

So what do you get?  Each of the 1,800 courses has six sections beginning with a Course Home, which gives the full title of the course and a brief description.  The remaining five options are syllabus, calendar, readings, assignments and a link to download the course.  Many of the courses come with audio or video lectures and discussions. 

While there are 36 MIT Departments represented on this site, since you are reading this Blog you might be especially interested in going to look at the more than 100 courses offered by MIT’s Sloan School of Management. 

Here is some good news for international practitioners.   Many of these courses have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Thai.

And as I write this paragraph, I can’t help remembering a touching movie of a few years back that some of you may remember, “Pay It Forward”.  It was the story of a young boy who began doing acts of kindness and all he asked in return is that the receivers do the same for others.  In the movie, the concept caught on.  MIT has done the same thing and the excellent news is that it too has caught on.  There are now 13 countries copying the process (available at ocwconsortium.org) thanks to MIT’s efforts.  China has packaged 222 universities into one giant website.  France has bundled 11 universities into a website and Japan has nine separate universities listed. 

In addition to MIT, there are six US universities in various start up stages. 

To my mind MIT offers a truly amazing site.  Drop in and browse.  As for me, I am going to Mexico in a month so I think I will head over to the Foreign Language and Literature Department.  There is a Spanish I class that looks interesting. 

[tags]opensoftware, open software, MIT, Sloan School of Management, free education, management education, leadership education, leadership development, bill bradley, william bradley[/tags]
 

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.