What I’m Smiling About: Universities and Think Tanks Giving Away Educations!

Last summer, I mentioned my joy at discovering iTunes U: a section of the iTunes store devoted to giving away free lectures from top notch universities around the globe.  I’d like to point out a few others online sources for learning that I’ve been using lately.  Most everyone who stops by here seems interested in issues or ideas, and so these online source might be of interest.

First, Dear Husband and I recently discovered the wealth of information that Intercollegiate Studies Institute offers on their lecture page.  All fields of studies – economics, humanities, literature – are covered by brilliant scholars.   It’s got a conservative bend.  So I recommend it if your a conservative looking to educate yourself or if your a liberal looking to understand your conservative friend.

Second, I wrote about how impressed I was with Stephen Kinsella’s post at Ludwig von Mises.  While poking through the website, I discovered their article archives.  Entire books and scholarly journal articles are posted there, free to download.  All articles and books covers wide range of economic issues from a libertarian perspective.  I recommend it for the same reasons I recommend ISI.  Good reads, my friends, good reads.

Third, there’s been a push recently to offer online courses, and one result of the push is that many universities are offering access to their lecturers by posting their work online and open to the public.  So far, I’ve had good luck with UC Berkeley, the Open Learning Initiative from Carnagie Mellon, and MIT.

Further, Academic Earth and TED are other great resources.  On the front page of Academic Earth right now, you can choose from a lecture in African-American studies, physics, the philosophy of death, and game theory.  TED’s not so academic centered; it’s motto is “ideas worth spreading.”  You can listen to speeches given by professional lecturers, CEOs, politicians, authors, humanitarians, scientists, etc.

Finally, I mentioned it earlier this week, but I’ve got to say again Project Guttenberg is freaking awesome!  Texts from all sorts of points in history are posted online.

So, the morning walks to work now include lectures from Berkeley right alongside my right-wing podcasts.  Ha!  And you folks thought that conservatives only drink Bud and watch NASCAR?