My dad always told met that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” He urged me to thank people, offer a return gift, to never expect anything for nothing. But is there such a thing as a “free education?”
This Sunday’s Education Life section of the Times offered a fantastic overview of the many “free” online courses available to the public. 36 courses from Yale University, for example, with videos of lectures, syllabi with its reading lists, the professor’s Powerpoint slides. Courses from M.I.T. as well (33 courses via video, and excerpts of over 1,900 other courses). The article also highlighted the fact there have been over 16 million downloads of courses from the Open University in England. That’s a lot of courses! All for FREE.
But Free for whom? Yale has “spent” $30,000 – $40,000 per course to post it online. I put “spent” in parenthesis because it’s largely been the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation that has foot the bill. According to the article, the Hewlett Foundation has spent over $110 million helping educational institutions open their doors so that more people have access to their knowledge, or at least their curricula content.
I look forward to participating even more in this open educational movement. My husband Brad and I already love courses from The Teaching Company – but we pay for those video tutorials, lectures, and course guides. The Hewlett Foundation’s money can only go so far. Whatever the case, let’s add the open educational movement to the list of educational activities that don’t cost us a dime (or at least don’t demand that we dip into our life savings). We may even want to start a new version of book groups in this country: online-course-groups! Instead of talking about a book, we can talk about a course each of us is taking online….while, of course, eating yummy appetizers and sharing tales of our wacky days.
