Greatest Educational Tool since print.

[Grok]

This started a couple years ago, but for those who do not know about it, the following link is the greatest educational advancement of our time.  Open Courseware from MIT.

MIT OpenCourseWare

[Yoni]

It's a very nice idea but I don't see how it's so great.
You can't really learn from it, so it doesn't seem useful to someone who doesn't already own some textbooks.

For instance I looked at Calculus with Theory I.

References are to the textbook: Apostol, Calculus, Vol. I, Second Edition (1967);

Downloadable are notes and assignments, but without the book they don't make much sense, I think.

[Grok]

Huh?

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-013ACalculus-with-ApplicationsFall2001/Readings/index.htm#

[Yoni]

Ah, then that's pretty awesome (for the courses where it exists).

Calculus with Theory > Calculus with Applications, but oh well.

[Grok]

It will not be the same for every course.  Each professor teaches in his own way, depends on outside materials more or less than others.  Some, like theory, might heavily rely on lecture.  If some student does not take great lecture notes, users of OpenCourseWare might get less than they need.

What they have provided is far more than anyone else, and for free!

[j0k3r]

What can I say Grok, I love you. I've been looking (well, hoping) for one of these sites to come along for a looong time now. I'll have to read through some of these courses, it might help me decide what to take in university.

Great as it is, it uses PDFs (ewwy). Yoink

[Yoni]

Great as it is, it uses PDFs (ewwy).

Of all the versatile document formats, PDF is most compatible with *.
(Except maybe postscript, but I haven't ever used postscript so I don't know.)

[Noodlez]

St0rm posted this a while ago. http://forum.valhallalegends.com/phpbbs/index.php?board=23;action=display;threadid=2909

It truly is an amazing educational tool.