Recommended Read – for teachers and students interested in free world class education

UNESCO REPORT

Sources for Lifelong Learning

There are countless free sources available online. Here are a few of the best:

The Open Education Consortium

[http://www.oeconsortium.org/about-oec/]

Who We Are

We are a global network of educational institutions, individuals and organizations that support an approach to education based on openness, including collaboration, innovation and collective development and use of open educational materials. The Open Education Consortium is a non-profit, social benefit organization registered in the United States and operating worldwide.

Our Mission

We promote, support and advance openness in education around the world.

Our Vision

Empowerment through education. We envision a world where everyone, everywhere has access to the high quality education and training they desire; where education is seen as an essential, shared, and collaborative social good.

Our Values

• Global focus
• Openness
• Equity
• Collaboration
• Multiculturalism

Our Activities

• Awareness raising
• Networking and community development
• Advocacy and advising
• Capacity building and training
• Implementation support
• Consultancies

What is Open Education?

Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.

Open Education combines the traditions of knowledge sharing and creation with 21^st century technology to create a vast pool of openly shared educational resources, while harnessing today’s collaborative spirit to develop educational approaches that are more responsive to learner’s needs.

The idea of free and open sharing in education is not new.  In fact, sharing is probably the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing knowledge, insights and information with others, upon which new knowledge, skills, ideas and understanding can be built.  Open Education seeks to scale educational opportunities by taking advantage of the power of the internet, allowing rapid and essentially free dissemination, and enabling people around the world to access knowledge, connect and collaborate. Open is key; open allows not just access, but the ability to modify and use materials, information and networks so education can be personalized to individual users or woven together in new ways for large and diverse audiences.

Why is Open Education important?

Education is an essential tool for individuals and society to solve the challenges of the present and seize the opportunities of the future. However, the current provision of education is limited by educational institutions’ capacity, consequently, this resource is available to the few, not the many.  The digital revolution offers a potential solution to these limitations, giving a global audience unprecedented access to free, open and high-quality educational resources.

People want to learn. By providing free and open access to education and knowledge, people can fulfill this desire. Students can get additional information, viewpoints and materials to help them succeed. Workers can learn something that will help them on the job. Faculty can exchange material and draw on resources from all around the world. Researchers can share data and develop new networks. Teachers can find new ways to help students learn. People can connect with others they wouldn’t otherwise meet to share information and ideas. Materials can be translated, mixed together, broken apart and openly shared again, increasing access and allowing new approaches. Anyone can access educational materials, scholarly articles, and supportive learning communities anytime they want to. Education is available, accessible, modifiable and free.

Our Sponsors

Activities of the Open Education Consortium are generously supported by:

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Sustaining Members of the Open Education Consortium:

• The African Virtual University
• Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources
• Delft University of Technology
• Fundação Getulio Vargas – FGV Online
• Japan OpenCourseWare Consortium
• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Korea OpenCourseWare Consortium
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Netease Open Courses
• Open Universiteit
• Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
• Taiwan Open Course Consortium
• Tecnológico de Monterrey
• Tufts University
• Universia
• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
• University of California, Irvine
• University of Michigan

·         and contributions of member organizations

You can read or download our bylaws here.

Highlights for High School : features MIT OpenCourseWare materials that are most useful for high school students and teachers.

For Students 

For Teachers 

OCW Educator

Sharing teaching approaches and materials from MIT with educators everywhere, for free.

OCW Educator is an MIT faculty-inspired initiative to enhance the value of OCW materials for educators at the Institute and around the world. Search across the MIT curriculum to find teaching materials to use with your own students. Explore faculty insights about instructional approaches. Go behind the scenes to learn how MIT courses are taught on campus.

TOPIC

Active Learning

Assessment

Augmenting Curricula

Course Histories and Development

Critical Thinking

Diversity and Inclusion

Engaging Learners

Insights from MIT Teaching Award Recipients

Instructional Design

Instructors

Learning Communities

Lecturing

Non-Traditional Courses

Professional Competencies

Real-World Contexts

Reflective Practice

Teaching Communication

Teaching Novices

Teaching Problem Solving

Teaching the Design Process

Teaching with Technology

Views of Learning & Knowing

TEACHING EXCELLENCE AT MIT [http://teachingexcellence.mit.edu/]

The Teaching Excellence Project highlights the extraordinary teaching and learning at MIT, documented by MIT Video Productions (MVP) over several decades. With generous support from Neil and Jane Pappalardo, MVP has digitized, preserved and now shares these inspiring videos. 

Teaching excellence is not formulaic on campus. Rather, it originates in classrooms, laboratories, common spaces, residence halls, and along the great corridors of MIT. Within this site are a number of videos that showcase the experiential learning that is MIT. 

A selection of courses are presented in their entirety in the Inspiring Teachers section. In class lectures and often through real-time demonstrations, faculty reveal the process of achieving fluency in the languages of their disciplines, while sharing unique perspectives on their own trajectories to discovery and excellence. Footage From the Vault, drawn from several MIT archives, showcases the culture of Institute life, work, and play through vintage films and special events spanning several generations of the MIT community.Must See! videos highlight favorite talks, lectures, and events from a variety of venues across the campus. 

Watch, enjoy, and be inspired!

MIT Crosslinks and OCW [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/crosslinks/]

If you're learning about foundational STEM topics, you may want to explore MIT Crosslinks as a guide to OCW and other open educational resources.

MIT Crosslinks describes how STEM topics are introduced, developed and applied across select MIT undergraduate courses. While only the MIT community may create and edit this crowdsourced content, the results are open to the world.

Each Crosslinks topic, like the example to the right, starts with a brief definition. That's followed by links to content which MIT students recommend to each other – and to you – to help learn about the topic.

Coursera. Coursera works with top universities from around the world to offer classes online for free. You can take classes from a variety of disciplines including computer sciences, psychology, and Spanish.

OpenStudy. OpenStudy is a social learning network that allows you to connect with individuals with the same learning goals as you.

Khan Academy. I freaking love Khan Academy. You’ll find over 4,000 videos covering topics ranging from algebra to finance to history. My favorite part of Khan Academy, though, is math exercises. You start with basic math and work your way up to calculus in an adaptive, game-like environment. I’ve been slowly going through the exercises to freshen up on my math.

Duolingo. Free website to learn foreign languages. It’s a pretty cool set up. As you progress through the lessons, you’re simultaneously helping translate websites and other documents.

Code Academy. Learn to code for free with interactive exercises. I wish Code Academy was around when I was learning how to build AoM. It would have helped a lot.

edX. Harvard University and MIT partnered together to create interactive, free online courses. The same world-renowned professors that teach at Harvard and MIT have created the courses on edX. You can find courses for just about any subject. I’ve signed up for a class called The Ancient Greek Hero. Class started last week, but you can still sign up. Join me!

Udacity. Udacity is similar to edX and Coursera. College level classes taught online for free.

CreativeLive. I discovered CreativeLive a few weeks ago. It’s an interesting concept. You can watch the live stream of the course being taught for free, but if you want to view the course later and at your own pace you have to pay for it. The courses focus on more creative and business subjects like videography and online marketing. I’ve sat in on a few of the free courses and was impressed with the curriculum.

TED. TED compiles speeches and lectures not only by professors but interesting people from many different walks of life. TED talks are lighter than academic lectures, often quite funny, and concentrate on interesting ideas and concepts. And most are 20 minutes or less, so they’re great for those with a short attention span.

iTunes U. Download thousands of free podcast lectures taught by the best professors from around the world and learn while in your car.

YouTube EDU. Instead of watching a bunch of auto-tuned cats, enrich your mind by browsing through YouTube EDU. They have thousands of videos that cover a variety of topics.

For more ideas on free learning resources, check out this post: How to Become a Renaissance Man Without Spending a Dime.