There are a lot of people who would like to go to college
without, you know, actually going to college, and the University of
California at Berkeley has taken steps to make that more of a
possibility.
Using the power of the Internet and the popularity of online
video sharing, UC Berkeley has begun “uploading
video recordings of course lectures to YouTube.”
What started several years ago with the publication of course
syllabi and other electronic documentation, freely available to all who
might wish to learn for the sake of learning quickly expanded
into a far-reaching pot pourri of audio
recordings, dubbed podcasts.
I believe the first
widely publicized delivery of such material was the debut of
MIT’s OpenCourseWare
program.
Recordings were made of lectures and
speeches, and today, some institutions of higher education have even
gone so far as to deliver full, unabridged courses, for anyone to
attend – as a non-participatory, on-demand audience, that is.
Full Video Courses Now Available Online
Today, like was witnessed around the time of the birth of the
podcast, a select few video captures of educational colloquia and even
a few unique courses are being made available for download by various
colleges.
UC Berkeley in particular, one of the most historically
notable campuses in the US in the past century, is seeing to it that it
puts to the Web as many such visual recordings as possible. The video
host of choice? Why, YouTube,
of course.
The university’s first round of captures to be
uploaded to the very
popular video emporium consists of roughly 300 hours of lectures, with
subjects ranging from Chemistry to Physics to Non-Violence to,
interestingly enough, Search Engines.
There is a particular
“study” made
available for perusal which just so happens to include a recording of a
lecture given by a Mr Sergey Brin. I’m sure you’ve
heard of the fellow.
Do keep in mind that these are college lectures
being
presented on YouTube, not funny bloopers or anything of the sort. So
don’t venture into the collection thinking you’re
going to be
thoroughly entertained by what you see.
It’s what you hear that, if anything, is going to have you
enthralled.
The Tip Of The Iceberg?
And remember, UC Berkeley just started this project. The 300
hour
cache that has been made available to us Web viewers is likely only the
tip of the iceberg, as the old adage goes.
Look for a steady expansion
in the way of course material and variety of subjects. If
you’re
through with the science courses, you’ll probably have a
whole lotta
literary analysis to forage, and so on and so forth.
Well, that’s about all I have to say on the matter.
If you wish to
engross yourself on videos already made available by the nice,
tech-savvy folk at Berkeley, head on over to this
page, where you’ll undoubtedly find plenty to pore
over. Enjoy!
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
