Lifelong Learning

I went through the MIT Open Courseware catalog today, and came up with nearly two dozen courses I'd like to take. Which triggered the thought... I could be at this my whole life. Which triggered the thought... well, why not? Not everyone who could benefit has the 2-4-8 years, and 100K+ dollars to spare that it takes to move to Boston and go to school. But what if the courses could come to me? I could take one or two at a time, from here on out.

What I need to do is figure out how to create my own learning environment, peer group, and instructors, and get a steady diet of courses, probably for the rest of my career. And the best way to do that is probably to help others to do the same.

Has anyone read 'The Life Long Learner' by Ronald Gross?

Of course, I bet this would make a great Phd research area.

Comments

[Dave Hoover]

Patrick, as you know, I feel the same way. You and I are both fortunate enough to have found a topic that we are interested in pursuing for the rest of our lives: The Psychology of Computer Programming.

With that blessing in place, we are faced with the challenge of forming local study groups...learning is maximized in communion with other learners. This is the task at hand.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I would add "Software Craftsmanship" by Pete McBreen and "The Courage to Teach" by Parker Palmer alongside it.

[Bradley Holt]

I am also interested in using MIT's Open Courseware as a resource for studying Software Engineering. I am currently a computer instructor and software development contractor. I was thinking about setting up a free online course system using OCW as a major resource. I am not sure about the copyright issues involved, however I would not actually copy any material from OCW. Basicly it would be a series of structured discussion boards, quizzes, etc. maintained by the users of the system. There are several open source software programs I could easily install as a web developer. Let me know if you or anyone else is interested. I will put the time into setting it up and pay for the hosting if there is enough interest. Also, I want to make sure there isn't anything like this already out there. No need to reinvent the wheel.