In the following, CURE offers an overview of the exploding opportunities for expanding one’s knowledge through the use of high quality educational material that has been put online by the world’s leading schools and universities.

Very extensive, free educational materials (open courseware) on the internet opens new opportunities for the education of groups in diverse organizations around the world. This includes, for example, companies, non-profits, schools, community centers, and correctional facilities.

1. WHAT IS OFFERED?

At another file, click courses, you can find samples of this offering. There, you have 54 selected courses or lectures (samples we think illustrate the relevant resources), and URLs pointing to each. These samples are organized by subject:

                High School General (8 samples),
                Math (5 samples),
                English (1 sample),
                Social Studies (6 samples),
                Biology (2 samples),
                Chemistry (3 samples),
                Physics (6 samples),
                Information Technology (6 samples),
                Political Science (6 samples),
                History (2 samples),
                Engineering (5 samples), and
                Finance/Business (4 samples).

In each subject, courses or lectures are classified as to high school or some college level. Readers can readily view any of these 54 courses or lectures.

We expect to expand the number of courses in courses, and hopefully to give some sort of rating to them, if we hear from you, our website readers.

The samples in courses are only a tiny fraction of the educational content already available on the internet. Nevertheless, there appears to still be a lack of material in the areas of vocational education and pre-professional education. These are areas which are often strong in community colleges and independent vocational academies.  Efforts should be made to encourage (and get financial assistance for) more open courseware of these types .

Colleges that provide open courseware offer free and wonderfully educational courses, but with open courseware they offer no interaction with college teachers, and no college credits or degrees (see “Collaboration,”  and “CLEP” ). Other online courseware offer it all, but at a price comparable to ordinary tuition.

2. ACCESS, SCHEDULING, and SECURITY

In organizational education, it often is not feasible for every participant to have personal access to the internet. Another requirement is the freedom to schedule education at convenient times. One can meet both of these requirements and still use courseware from the internet as follows.

Many courseware files can be downloaded from the internet by authorized personnel or teachers, using computers either inside or outside the organization. These courseware files can be stored on portable Flash Drives (a two-inch portable Flash Drive can hold 2 to 8 GB or 2 to 8 hours of video lecture) or on a DVD.  The small portable Flash Drive or DVD need be handled only by a responsible teacher or designated organization staff, and not by students.

The portable Flash Drive or DVD can later be used to present the courseware elsewhere to students via a) a stand-alone computer, b) a projection display driven by a laptop, or c) a local network of computers. The DVD can also be shown on a TV. None of these need have any connection to the internet.

This procedure aids correctional facility security, obeying a ground rule, in many prisons, that incarcerated persons may not have access to the internet.

3. WHERE AND HOW TO DOWNLOAD

The download procedures are varied, depending on both the source and the type of material. Hence, some effort is involved. At another file, click downloads, we identify six major sources of free, online courseware, plus instructions on how to download materials from many of them.  

1. YouTube (MIT, Berkeley);
2. iTunes U, (Stanford, MIT, Duke, K-12);
3. Direct from colleges (Berkeley,  Yale);
4. Curriki (a consortium for K-12  materials);
5. MERLOT (a consortium for college materials); and
6. UCCP (for college prep courses).

We hope to expand this list of sources, in downloads, and their download procedures.

4. TEACHING MODES

Courseware use may fall into different teaching modes. Much preferred is a group facilitation mode, using a present teacher, teacher-assistant, or  facilitator to manage student discussion, group collaboration, quizzes, exams, and assignments. See "Collaboration"