5 ms·

Open Education Resources

94 points by nprincigalli 15y ago

barry-cotter 15y ago
Pap. If you know Opencourseware exists there are two things worth learning on that page, ck-12 and flat world knowledge make freely downloadable textbooks. Not worth your time.
- gbrindisi 15y ago
  Clickables: http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/ http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/ http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/ http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    That's one lame "Javascript is off" warning, on the former. Degrade gracefully, and let the client see something of what you have to offer. They might actually decide it's worth their while, and gather sufficient trust, to enable Javascript.
    - Groxx 15y ago
      I understand the complaint completely, but be sure to look at it from a cost/benefit viewpoint as well. People with JS off are likely significantly less than 1% of their users. They would likely benefit more from supporting IE6, and maybe IE5, than supporting JS-off.
      - pasbesoin 15y ago
        It's a redirect to a warning page. If you pause the load (Escape key) before the redirect, the initial/front page is plenty visible and ok looking. I keep JS disabled because there's just too much random/nasty cr*p out there. I'll do JS for some sites, but it's definitely "opt-in", for me. Yeah, I'm a corner case. I just found the deliberate redirect away from a presentable page (with JS disabled) to a content-devoid warning/advisory, to be rather pointless, from my perspective.
        Groxx 15y ago
        hah, yeah, that's pretty annoying. I prefer un-announced failure to drop-everything-and-berate-user. I didn't realize it was that bad, I retract my earlier remark - this likely cost them additional time to be more annoying (though was probably done for people on ancient browsers, and not voluntary no-JS-ers).
eftpotrm 15y ago
I have to admit an interest in this as I work for them, but the Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/ http://www.open.ac.uk/) do have quite a lot of material online.... http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/ http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/ http://open.edu/itunes/ http://open.edu/itunes/ http://www.youtube.com/user/oulearn http://www.youtube.com/user/oulearn
- danohuiginn 15y ago
  That is a lot of material. Thanks. minor grumble: why, why, WHY do so many universities put their content on ItunesU, thus making it all but inaccessible for those of us not already using apple software. Even dumping a pile of MP3s on a server somewhere would make your material much more accessible.
  - DuckPaddle 15y ago
    Follow the money...
  - Turing_Machine 15y ago
    iTunes U is essentially just a directory service for the convenience of iTunes users. The actual content is in fact still stored on the school's server, just as you say -- a very common way of populating iTunes U is through RSS feeds from some internal system (not necessarily Apple-based). If the content is free, there's no reason why they shouldn't make it available through alternate links/feeds. You could try complaining to the person in charge. :-)
    - Turing_Machine 15y ago
      Possibly of interest (I haven't tried these myself): http://www.ubuntugeek.com/tunesviewer-itunes-university-media-and-podcasts-in-linux.html http://www.ubuntugeek.com/tunesviewer-itunes-university-medi... http://www.fritscher.ch/blog/2009/05/13/browsing-itunesu-without-intalling-itunes/ http://www.fritscher.ch/blog/2009/05/13/browsing-itunesu-wit...
      - 15y ago
huherto 15y ago
I am testing learnboost.com to manage a class. It works ok. But I have found a couple of wrinkles. I hope it is just a matter of time.
jasonmcalacanis 15y ago
The progress in free education is astounding.
buckwild 15y ago
I can't believe they didn't mention Khan Academy.
- marcomonteiro 15y ago
  That was my first thought after reading the article.
- nprincigalli 15y ago
  They do, first link in the 4th paragraph. Noticed now that Academic Earth ( http://academicearth.org/ http://academicearth.org/ ) is missing, tho.
  - astrofinch 15y ago
    Same for http://videolectures.net/ http://videolectures.net/
- DuckPaddle 15y ago
  A high school student I know finds the Khan videos not deep enough. She said they are a good introduction but didn't cover anywhere near what she was seeing in class. So I guess you get what you pay for.
  - enry_straker 15y ago
    If she just wrote to Salman Khan along with classmates, i am sure he would be happy to cover the missing areas too. It's just that he chooses areas to cover based on feedback from students/users - and if enough students approach him, the subject gets magically covered.
mindcrime 15y ago
A couple of the best resources I know of are actually on Reddit, in sub-reddits dedicated to cataloging freely available textbooks in various fields: http://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/mathbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/mathbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/eebooks http://www.reddit.com/r/eebooks http://www.reddit.com/r/physicsbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/physicsbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/econbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/econbooks And, of course, there is this classic site: http://people.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html http://people.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.ht...

94 points by nprincigalli 15y ago

Pap. If you know Opencourseware exists there are two things worth learning on that page, ck-12 and flat world knowledge make freely downloadable textbooks. Not worth your time.

gbrindisi 15y ago
Clickables: http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/ http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/ http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/ http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  That's one lame "Javascript is off" warning, on the former. Degrade gracefully, and let the client see something of what you have to offer. They might actually decide it's worth their while, and gather sufficient trust, to enable Javascript.
  - Groxx 15y ago
    I understand the complaint completely, but be sure to look at it from a cost/benefit viewpoint as well. People with JS off are likely significantly less than 1% of their users. They would likely benefit more from supporting IE6, and maybe IE5, than supporting JS-off.
    - pasbesoin 15y ago
      It's a redirect to a warning page. If you pause the load (Escape key) before the redirect, the initial/front page is plenty visible and ok looking. I keep JS disabled because there's just too much random/nasty cr*p out there. I'll do JS for some sites, but it's definitely "opt-in", for me. Yeah, I'm a corner case. I just found the deliberate redirect away from a presentable page (with JS disabled) to a content-devoid warning/advisory, to be rather pointless, from my perspective.
      - Groxx 15y ago
        hah, yeah, that's pretty annoying. I prefer un-announced failure to drop-everything-and-berate-user. I didn't realize it was that bad, I retract my earlier remark - this likely cost them additional time to be more annoying (though was probably done for people on ancient browsers, and not voluntary no-JS-ers).

eftpotrm 15y ago

I have to admit an interest in this as I work for them, but the Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/ http://www.open.ac.uk/) do have quite a lot of material online.... http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/ http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/ http://open.edu/itunes/ http://open.edu/itunes/ http://www.youtube.com/user/oulearn http://www.youtube.com/user/oulearn

danohuiginn 15y ago
That is a lot of material. Thanks. minor grumble: why, why, WHY do so many universities put their content on ItunesU, thus making it all but inaccessible for those of us not already using apple software. Even dumping a pile of MP3s on a server somewhere would make your material much more accessible.
- DuckPaddle 15y ago
  Follow the money...
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  iTunes U is essentially just a directory service for the convenience of iTunes users. The actual content is in fact still stored on the school's server, just as you say -- a very common way of populating iTunes U is through RSS feeds from some internal system (not necessarily Apple-based). If the content is free, there's no reason why they shouldn't make it available through alternate links/feeds. You could try complaining to the person in charge. :-)
  - Turing_Machine 15y ago
    Possibly of interest (I haven't tried these myself): http://www.ubuntugeek.com/tunesviewer-itunes-university-media-and-podcasts-in-linux.html http://www.ubuntugeek.com/tunesviewer-itunes-university-medi... http://www.fritscher.ch/blog/2009/05/13/browsing-itunesu-without-intalling-itunes/ http://www.fritscher.ch/blog/2009/05/13/browsing-itunesu-wit...
    - 15y ago

huherto 15y ago

I am testing learnboost.com to manage a class. It works ok. But I have found a couple of wrinkles. I hope it is just a matter of time.

jasonmcalacanis 15y ago

The progress in free education is astounding.

buckwild 15y ago

I can't believe they didn't mention Khan Academy.

marcomonteiro 15y ago
That was my first thought after reading the article.
nprincigalli 15y ago
They do, first link in the 4th paragraph. Noticed now that Academic Earth ( http://academicearth.org/ http://academicearth.org/ ) is missing, tho.
- astrofinch 15y ago
  Same for http://videolectures.net/ http://videolectures.net/
DuckPaddle 15y ago
A high school student I know finds the Khan videos not deep enough. She said they are a good introduction but didn't cover anywhere near what she was seeing in class. So I guess you get what you pay for.
- enry_straker 15y ago
  If she just wrote to Salman Khan along with classmates, i am sure he would be happy to cover the missing areas too. It's just that he chooses areas to cover based on feedback from students/users - and if enough students approach him, the subject gets magically covered.

mindcrime 15y ago

A couple of the best resources I know of are actually on Reddit, in sub-reddits dedicated to cataloging freely available textbooks in various fields: http://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/mathbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/mathbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/eebooks http://www.reddit.com/r/eebooks http://www.reddit.com/r/physicsbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/physicsbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/econbooks http://www.reddit.com/r/econbooks And, of course, there is this classic site: http://people.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html http://people.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.ht...