Renaissance Society
3-28-2014
ONLINE RESOURCES
GENERAL
Big History. https://www.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive,
http://www.history.com/shows/big-history/, also YouTube videos. Themes and patterns
that tie history, science and other fields together. Funded by Gates Foundation.
Curriculum, videos & other materials. Great RS seminar potential!
iTunes U. Free Apple app Learn a new language. Study Shakespeare. Discover the
cosmos. It’s all possible on iTunes U, home to more than 500,000 free lectures, videos,
books, and other resources on thousands of subjects. Among the hundreds of colleges,
universities, and elementary and high schools on iTunes U, you’ll find Stanford, Yale,
MIT, Oxford, and UC Berkeley, along with other distinguished institutions such as
MoMA, the New York Public Library, and more. Great resource, includes many
resources other than universities, check the Beyond Campus tab. Need Apple device to
get app.
SmARThistory. http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/about-smarthistory.html.
Smarthistory at Khan Academy is the leading open educational resource for art history.
We make high-quality introductory art history content freely available to anyone,
anywhere. Smarthistory is a platform for the discipline where art historians contribute in
their areas of expertise and learners come from across the globe. We offer nearly 500
videos. Good source for art seminars.
Academic Earth. http://academicearth.org Original thought provoking lectures, and on
line college course excerpts from world' s top universities. Suitable for RS. Varying
time lengths from 1 hour to 20 hours. And now, we take learning outside the classroom
with our original series of thought-provoking videos, designed to spark your intellectual
curiosity and start a conversation. Watch, learn, share, debate. After all, only through
questioning the world around us, can we come to better understand it.
Great Courses. http://www.thegreatcourses.com. DVDs, digital and audio files of
university courses taught by the best professors. Wide variety of topics. Costs vary,
$40 and up. Includes course ratings.
DOCUMENTARIES
DIY Genius. http://www.diygenius.com/mind-expanding-documentaries/. 300 Online
documentaries in 31 categories. Any category could be used as a seminar topic.
Wonderful list of documentaries.
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Renaissance Society
3-28-2014
ONLINE RESOURCES
Journeyman Documentaries.
http://www.journeyman.tv/58441/documentaries/documentaries.html. Requires paid
subscription.
Top Documentary Films http://www.topdocumentaryfilms.com. Large number of
free documentary films.
TV CHANNELS & RELATED
History Channel
National Geographic Channel
NPR-- can augment audio with visuals
PBS
Science Channel
Smithsonian Channel
TED
YouTube—Education Channel
MOOCs
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are online courses with unlimited participation
and open access on the internet. These free courses from universities all over the world
(eg. Stanford Harvard MIT), can consist of videos, lectures, books and links to other
tutorial information. Several popular MOOC provider platforms have emerged, such as
Coursera, Udacity, EdX, and NovoEd, that partner with universities and professors to
offer MOOCs on their platforms. Individual courses may be for certification, or upon
completion, used towards a university degrees and have defined start/stop terms,
exams and homework, and consist of individual lectures. Other courses may not have
specific start/stop terms, do not require homework or projects, and may be of varying
lengths from an hour to many hours. These courses can be adapted to the RS seminar
format.
Academic Room. http://academicroom.com. Lots of academic resources such as
profiles, video lectures, images, audio recordings, books, journal articles, book reviews,
bibliographies, dissertations, manuscripts, syllabi and dissertations. Courses may not
require home work, projects, etc. Lots of good stuff for RS seminars.
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Renaissance Society
3-28-2014
ONLINE RESOURCES
Class Central https://www.class-central.com Class Central is a free online course aka
MOOC aggregator from top universities like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc. offered via
Coursera, Udacity, edX, NovoED, & others.
Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/ Online classes from 80+ top universities and
organizations. Coursera is a social entrepreneurship company partnering with Stanford
University, Yale and many others. Also offers certificate programs. Courses have start
& end dates.
EdX. https://www.edx.org. Edx offers interactive online classes and MOOCs from the
world’s best universities. Online courses from MITx, HarvardX, BerkeleyX, UTx and
many other universities. Topics include biology, business, chemistry, computer science,
economics, finance, electronics, engineering, food and nutrition, history, humanities,
law, literature, math, medicine, music, philosophy, physics, science, statistics and more.
EdX is a non-profit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT.
Courses have start & end dates.
MOOC List. http://www.mooc-list.com MOOC aggregator. Includes courses that do not
have start/end dates, certificate programs, home work nor exams. Suitable for RS.
Australia based.
Open Culture http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses. 825 online courses from
universities in liberal arts & sciences. Some with degree programs, many without,
suitable for Ren Soc.
Open Courseware Consortium. More text, class like, schedule?
Open Education Database. http://oedb.org/open/ Over 10,000 free on-line courses
from top universities. On-line degree focus.
Saylor.org The Saylor Foundation (under its legal name, The Constitution Foundation)
Mr. Saylor created the Foundation because he had a very simple, very earnest, and
very bold idea: Education should be free. As changes in technology have made the
distribution of information easier, high-quality educational materials have become
increasingly digital and readily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
Udacity. http://udacity.com. Some with no start or end dates. Certificate & noncertificate programs. Course overview videos. Suitable for RS.
Udemy. http://udemy.com Variety of self-help, photography, computer & many other
short classes. Includes both free and paid videos. Some of interest for RS seminars.
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