[Sig] (1) sig mail list(s?), (2) URLs for MIT (non-credit) courses

[Randy Kramer]

Joe and Roy and I were talking last night about free courses on line.  I 
sent this to Joe with some URLs, but I decided it might be useful for 
others as well, so I'm resending it here.

Hmm, ok, I'm not sure where "here" is anymore--is the old 
sig at thelinuxlink.net list still active?  Is everybody in the sig on 
that list?  

Also, is there anybody on the sig at thelinuxlink.net list who is not also 
on the lvlug at thelinuxlink.net?

If anybody has some URLs pointing to "good" humanities type courses, 
preferably with video lectures, (especially sociology), I'd appreciate 
those.  I know Harvard offers some, but finding the URLs is not easy 
(and I haven't really searched much so far).  I know that UC Berkeley 
offers at least one psychology course (URL somewhere below--on 
youtube).

<What I sent to Joe>

Hmm, I should try to help make sense of these, but I'll start by just 
giving you some URLs.

The video lectures (when a course has video lectures) are sometimes also 
available for download, or on other sites (like youtube).

This is the "home page" for the physics course I plan to work through:

    * 
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/CourseHome/
    * "8.01 Physics I: Classical Mechanics: Fall 1999"

If you start at the top of that hierarchy, you'll find out more about 
the MIT program and lists of other courses offered.

Many of the videos (not all of the courses have videos) are also on this 
site:

   * http://videolectures.net/mit_ocw/

This is the page on that site with the first lecture in that physics 
course:

   * http://videolectures.net/mit801f99_lewin_lec01/

One of the (several) pages about each lecture has a typed transcript of 
his lecture.  Nevertheless, viewing the video is very helpful.  For 
example, this page has the transcript of the first lecture:

   * 
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/VideoLectures/detail/embed01.htm#transcript

This is a different video lecture by the same professor--it is the one 
that impressed me and made me decide to look for more.

   * [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJVvtOy-ukE&NR=1][The Wonder and 
Beauty of Teaching Physics]]

Originally, I went looking for the Feynman lectures because  I 
understood Bill Gates put them on a free site.  The trouble is, iiuc, 
they are only available in "Silverlight" format.  I guess Moonlight, 
available for Linux, should do the job on Linux, but I haven't tried to 
look for Moonlight for my Debian system.

Here's the beginning (i.e., first lecture) of a psych course from UC 
Berkeley.  I might take it--but I didn't like the first lecture (the 
lecturer), so I may look around for something else.  (BTW, the actual 
lecture starts something like 31 minutes into the video--all before 
that is various "announcements" and, essentially, ads.)

Have fun!  (or not ;-)

PS: Now that I'm "in to" viewing videos, I need to modify my sig--for a 
lot of things I still prefer an easily readable piece of text, but a 
well done video (with good visual aids and similar) is indeed worth 
something like a thousand, or ten thousand, or something like that 
number of words.

Randy Kramer
-- 
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video 
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.