Date: March 5, 2007

MIT and Yale have put virtually their entire curriculums online for anyone to access. This is a very significant development. We owe a huge thank you to the schools and the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation (www.hewlett.org). Here is what the WSJ had to say about the Hewitt Foundation:

“Many of the schools that offer free online coursework are supported through grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which says it hopes to promote "open educational resources." Hewlett so far has given over $68 million to universities and nonprofits to post free online materials.“

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.asp

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117150338599609332-
search.asp?KEYWORDS=mit+yale&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month

(Wall Street Journal link may need a subscription)

Here is a part of the WSJ article:
“Some MIT online courses are even more comprehensive. All of the lectures for legendary professor Walter Lewin's Physics I, II and III courses are on video, in addition to detailed lecture notes, assignments and practice exams.
Dr. Lewin says he receives emails every day from the general public and tries to answer all of them. And while a few of them can be "annoying" when they start to dispute his reply, he says the emails of appreciation from the public -- kids and adults who say they grew to love physics through the lectures -- make it all worthwhile. "Some of them make me cry," Dr. Lewin says.”

For the motivated student, this means that with, access to the internet, they can get a similar knowledge base as a person who attends MIT or Yale. Attending Yale and MIT fulltime as an enrolled student costs over $200,000 over four years. Granted that one would miss critical student and faculty interaction, but it opens up a whole world of world-class knowledge at less than a a cost of $1-2 a day. That is wonderful. It also means one can “attend” classes at MIT anytime – evenings, weekends, nights … whenever. This will keep getting better as more videos and presentations get posted over the years.