Open Courseware: The Future Of Education

Standford University has released the Courseware, including lecture videos, for some of its computer science courses under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. MIT has undertaken a similar intiative, release materials under a similar license. Standford has fewer courses, they all appear to have videos from each lectures.

This is an amazing development. But then, when considered, the reasons not to post educational materials, such as video lectures, seem selfish. Educator time is best spent answering questions, rather than lecturing. Some Lecturers are also fortunate enough to be in a class of their own, and everyone should benefit from their gift.

On the whole, Information technology is starting aspire to its true potential and this should be celebrated. Corporations have been realizing this potential for some time, but now there is also a particularly remarkable transformation in the public space right now. The revolution in education is just getting started, but it will be humanity's greatest accomplishment to date.