With the world literally at our fingertips, thanks to technology, the walls of the traditional classroom no long inhibit what resources we can utilize in our courses.  One great example of this is a program established by MIT called MIT OpenCourseWare or OCW.   This program is a web-based publication of almost all MIT course content.  The best part is OCW is open and available with no login or registration required. You can find this program at http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm or check out your app store and download the MIT OCW app for free!

Why is this a great resource?  Faculties no longer have to reinvent the wheel each semester!  They can collaborate and work with resources that have already been established.  Higher education seems to be moving towards sharing and collaborating for the best advancement of the field as the idea of open source learning continues to grow.

A few things to remember about OCW include that the program is not equivalent to an MIT education and does not grant any degrees or certificates.  Also, the resource does not include access to MIT faculty and is not designed to substitute strong instruction and original content but work as a resource to assist instruction and learning.

The MIT OCW program includes different elements for different subject matters and different courses.  Elements that are available throughout the different courses include the following:

The elements available in each course are distinguished via the key picture next to the course name.  MIT OCW offers access to resources for over 2000 courses.  Courses available are in variety of subject matters such as architecture and planning, engineering, health science and technology, humanities, art, social sciences, management, science (biology, cognitive sciences, chemistry, mathematics, physics, etc.) athletics, physical education, and cross-disciplinary and others.

Please take a moment to check out this great resource and see all that it has to offer.  You might find the media you were looking for to enhance your on-ground course or you might find the link to the audio you have been searching for to engage your learners in your online course.  No matter what you’re teaching this semester, let MIT’s OCW be a great resource for you and your learners.

For more information please check out the MIT OpenCourseWare page at http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm or check out the free MIT OCW app!