OpenCourseWare

This week during the reading I say something very interesting that I feel like I knew about but I did not know exactly what it was. A few years ago I had a colleague that said he was taking a course at Yale University and I had no idea what he was talking about. So I asked him. He told me that Yale offered some free courses and he decided to take one over the summer because he thought it would be fun. Not really my idea of fun but it was cool none the less.
I forgot about that until I started to do some of the reading this week. Caswell, Henson, Jensen, and Wiley make some great points and give some great information about this thing called OpenCourseWear. The idea behind this is something that I wholeheartedly agree with. I think that if you are someone or some business and God has blessed you with more than you need you should give back. These universities decided that they would start offering some, and in some cases all, of their courses for free for individual learners. You might say to yourself, Why? Well I did to to my friend a few years back and then I thought about it. What if there was someone out there who did not have the money to attend school, what if somebody needed that course to survive? No, no, no, I am not talking about a course in bowling. I am talking about a course that can change someones life. The example the book gives is Utah State offering a course in biological irrigation engineering, and because of this some farmer in a far off, impoverished area could make sure their crops grow, make sure their family is fed, and make sure they can make a living.
If you really think about it most of us use OpenCourseWare on a daily basis. How many times do you go to Wikipedia? That is a form of OpenCourseWare. It really is something that I think that we need to see more of. I would like to see all universities and colleges go to this approach to offer people education. As I always tell my students, "The only way to break the cycle of poverty is to be educated." Do you know why I say that? It is because I lived through it. It is because I broke that cycle for my family. It is because after years of wondering if when I got home the lights would be off, food would not be on the table, and the water would be off, I said, "NO!"
I want all people to have the opportunity to better themselves through education. I think that OpenCourseWear is the way to do it.
Hope you guys have a great week!

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