Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Alyallen]

Legendary California university puts courses on YouTube
Wed Oct 3, 2:06 PM ET


BERKELEY, United States (AFP) - A California university renowned for US history changing free speech and anti-war movements is embracing the Internet revolution by putting free videos of courses on YouTube.

More than 300 hours of University of California, Berkeley, classes and events are available online at the web address www.youtube.com/ucberkeley , college officials announced on Wednesday.

University offerings at the dedicated YouTube channel include peace and conflict studies, bioengineering courses, and a science class titled "Physics for Future Presidents."

"UC Berkeley on YouTube will provide a public window into university life: academics, events and athletics," said vice provost for undergraduate education Christina Maslach.

The University plans to continually add videos to the channel, which officially launched Wednesday with about nine full courses consisting of approximately 40 lectures each.

Berkeley lays claim to being the first university to offer full courses on popular video-sharing website YouTube, which is based in Northern California.

The university began online broadcasts, called "webcasts," of its own in 2001 and last year began making audio "podcasts" available for download at Apple's iTunes online store.

"We are excited to make UC Berkeley videos available to the world on YouTube," said Ben Hubbard, who co-manages the university's webcast program.

"I think the whole open content movement is in keeping with what we are as a public institution, we really believe at our core that making this available to the public is truly important."

http://tinyurl.com/2ub36d

[reactionary]

video lectures, not reinforced by assignments or tests - or the reward of a degree.

not sure how that's more useful than a textbook.

[reactionary]

actually, this is great if you're a berkeley student and you missed or don't want to go to the lecture.

[Alyallen]

[reactionary]

true, it's free, just like a library is free. but i still see this being valued most by Cal students, much like online "powerpoint" notes. the ease of not goin to class. i just can't really imagine a lot of poor folks with an internet connection teaching themselves electrical engineering by watching 30 or so lectures for one class.

[Alyallen]

[Gopher]

Sounds like a good idea. Why not?

No one loses anything in this. The University is not granting free credit or degrees, right? Just offering first-rate information to anyone with access to the net.

[pkang0202]

Legendary seems too strong a word for Berkeley.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[CentralCali]

[Alyallen]

[CentralCali]

No, but those are textbooks there (albeit it merely digital) and they are free.

[Woland]

I'm teaching a class now at my university for professors at the university on how to more effectively teach their content classes in English. We're going to dig into these and look for samples we can use in these classes for the profs here to dissect in terms of what is effective and what is not. So, I think this is a great resource for me.

What I'm hoping is that they'll see that the lectures there look pretty much like what they do already. I mean, I meet these guys here each week and their English is certainly good enough to teach in English, but they lack confidence about it. Hopefully seeing what they do is the same as what people at Berkeley do will dispel the inferiority complex.

[Big_Bird]

Woland, you have a pretty interesting job it seems.

[Gopher]