| Your OpenCourseWare Newsletter | January 2025 |
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| Turning Adversity into Opportunity with MIT OpenCourseWare |
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| Image: Katherine Ouellette. |
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We are humbled and inspired by how learners around the world use MIT OpenCourseWare to improve their own lives and those of others in their communities. For our final episode of Open Learners, a special season of our Chalk Radio podcast, we share the story of Sujood Khalid Eldouma who fled the civil war in her native Sudan to further pursue her education in electrical engineering.
What helped her succeed? MIT OpenCourseWare’s free education resources equipped her with skills and confidence, and she utilized OCW along with other online offerings from MIT Open Learning such as a certificate in computer and data science from MIT Emerging Talent and a MicroMasters in statistics and data science from MITx MicroMasters®. Now a student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Eldouma hopes to contribute to future solutions for resolving conflict in Sudan and beyond. Her story and use of MIT OpenCourseWare is a testament to the power of education and resilience.
You can read her story on MIT News and listen to her episode as she shares how she hopes to help rebuild her war-torn country’s educational infrastructure. Learn more about this special season of Chalk Radio that highlights the transformational impact of MIT OpenCourseWare. |
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| Closing Knowledge Gaps with MIT OpenCourseWare |
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| Image: MIT Open Learning. |
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MIT Open Learning recently launched a new series of talks titled An Open Conversation! The first conversation features June Odongo, an entrepreneur and CEO in Kenya who uses free educational resources from MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) as training materials for her employees. The 6-month training program that she developed from OCW’s free computer science materials successfully creates viable career pathways and professional development opportunities for high-quality candidates, making them job-ready.
Watch the recording of the conversation on YouTube, where MIT Open Learning’s senior associate dean Christopher Capozzola asks Odongo to share her insights on learning, entrepreneurship, and the role of open education in upskilling and in changing the world. You can also learn more about Odongo’s story on MIT News. |
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| New Courses and Resources |
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| Image: A statue of Aristotle, located at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. (Image courtesy of solut_rai on Wikimedia Commons. License: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.) |
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6.5660 Computer Systems Security
This course page links to a faculty-managed site where you can find materials on the design and implementation of secure computer systems, arranged in a clear, well-organized format. The lectures address some of the attacks that compromise security as well as techniques for achieving security, with topics including operating system security, privilege separation, capabilities, language-based security, cryptographic network protocols, trusted hardware, and security in web applications and mobile phones. The course’s labs involve implementing and compromising a web application that sandboxes arbitrary code, supporting TLS certificates, and adding two-factor authentication. All the course materials are available for reuse under a Creative Commons license.
17.588 Field Seminar in Comparative Politics
This graduate-level seminar aims to provide the conceptual and analytical tools necessary to conduct research in comparative politics and to acquaint students with key topics in the field. The extensive reading list focuses on foundational material, including classics, modern classics, and recent work. For each week, a list of additional recommended readings provides a more extended bibliography for those who wish to do further reading on their own in preparation for comprehensive exams or for original research on the subject. Finally, an appendix provides a useful framework for approaching the readings, along with weekly discussion questions to guide your exploration of this rich set of materials.
21H.336 The Making of a Roman Emperor
Through close examination of the emperor Augustus and his Julio-Claudian successors, this undergraduate-level course investigates how Roman emperors used art, architecture, coinage, and other media to create and project an image of themselves to the world, how the surviving literary sources from the Roman period reinforced or subverted that image, and how both phenomena have contributed to post-classical perceptions of Roman emperors. It also considers works of Suetonius and Tacitus as well as modern representations of the emperors such as those found in the films I, Claudius and Quo Vadis and in HBO’s Rome series. Be sure to check out the image-rich lecture slides that provide a compelling visual history as well! |
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RES.STS-001 MIT Project on Embodied Education
The MIT Project on Embodied Education aims to encourage educators to integrate physical activity in their students’ learning at all levels—for example, teaching elementary school math through yoga, middle school physics through martial arts, high school science through swimming, and college history through dance. By following an external link from the pointer page on MIT OpenCourseWare, you can access brief explanations of the research that affirms the value of this kind of mind-body integration, as well as a library of lesson plans and ideas to make it easier for educators to incorporate elements of embodiment in their own teaching. |
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| Introductory Courses to Kickstart Your Learning Journey in 2025 |
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| Wondering why democracy emerges and survives in some countries rather than in others? The course 17.50 Introduction to Comparative Politics on MIT OpenCourseWare may help you find answers. (Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.) |
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| A recent Medium article by MIT Open Learning highlights the range of introductory-level courses that are available online from MIT, with offerings running the gamut of the sciences, technology, engineering, arts and humanities, and mathematics. Many of the courses listed in the article are certificate-granting MOOCs (massive open online courses) on EdX, xPRO, or MITx Online, but two of the ten featured STEM courses (6.S095 Programming for the Puzzled and 18.01 Calculus I) are from MIT OpenCourseWare, as are all five of the listed arts and humanities courses. |
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| End-of-Year Review: 2024 in Stories |
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| Image: Katherine Ouellette. |
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| From research developments to new learning opportunities, MIT Open Learning marked multiple achievements in 2024 that deepened our commitment to open education and the science of teaching and learning. Here at MIT OpenCourseWare, we’re especially inspired by learner stories like those of Sujood Eldouma and June Odongo, already featured in this month’s newsletter, as well as Bernardo Picão and Tomás Orellana who show us the power of free, open educational materials to transform one’s life and to improve the world. Read about them and other noteworthy stories of 2024 in this article on the exciting research, teaching, and innovating happening at MIT Open Learning. We look forward to another year with you! |
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| Make a Resolution to Share Knowledge in 2025! |
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| Image by MIT Open Learning. |
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| Last year, over 40 million learners like Shree explored new subjects, revisited familiar ones, or discovered a passion for learning, thanks to the 2,500+ courses available for free on MIT OpenCourseWare—and to the support of friends and fellow learners like you. If you missed the chance to contribute to our end-of-year fundraiser, consider kicking off 2025 with a gift to support OCW’s knowledge-sharing efforts. You and your generosity can jumpstart more learning journeys. |
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| Wishing you an enriching new year of learning! |
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| Newsletter edited by Shira Segal with contributions from Peter Chipman, production assistance from Stephanie Hodges, and resource development by Duyen Nguyen and Yvonne Ng. |
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| We want to hear from you! How can MIT OpenCourseWare help you in your educational endeavors? Write to us at [email protected] with questions or suggestions. |
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| More free resources from MIT Open Learning are available at: |
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