On-line Learning

December 11th, 2006 by ihsan

It may sound too cliche to say that we human beings do not live by bread or rice alone. Just as our bodies need nourishment on a daily basis, so do too our mind and heart. Regardless of whether we are aware of it learning does take place constantly. Indeed we learn, from birth to grave, making such professional terminology as ‘lifelong learning’ a redundancy.

Life in its finest sense, it may be argued, is an unending, essential process of learning. This is a process whereby individuals grow psychologically, intellectually and spiritually. It is also a process we learn to strike a balance - in terms of our various pursuits - between our individual needs-desires and those of our family, clan, community, nation, region and the world at large.

Here a word of caution may be in order.

All too often there is a tendency to glorify technocratic training as the ultimate education or to create and perpetuate un-helpful hierarchies amongst different branches of human understanding or knowledge.

Learning aimed at nurturing the mind without due attentiveness to the growth of the heart or “soul” - and vice versa - will remain, at best, half-baked.

Although on-line learning is in no way a substitute for the time-honoured tradition of face-to-face educative interactions between teachers and students, a learning process aided by information technology is still a worthwhile intellectual pursuit, especially by the Burmese learners in Burma/Myanmar or in diaspora with little or no finanial and material resources.

Guided by the aforementioned vision of fostering a community of learners amongst the Burmese, this section provides some of the world’s pioneering websites - known as OpenCourseWare programs, pioneered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Under the banner of ‘Open-Education Movement,” these sites are dedicated to the free dissemination of ideas, opinions, and analyses. One can find at these sites curricular materials used in literally thousands of undergraduate and graduate level courses at some of the world’s highly regarded institutions of higher learning.

On the basis of these ‘Open-Course-Ware materials’, coupled with other complimentary on-line intellectual resources at Pyinnya, our Burmese compatriots and friends will, it is hoped, construct their own critical understanding of the world they live in and of themselves as multi-faceted, complex human individuals.

“OPEN EDUCATION” WEBSITES

You may download free of charge lectures, course materials and readings in various formats, including audio, PDF and video-files from some of these sites.

THE UNITED KINGDOM

Open University, Europe’s Largest University

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/

USA

Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT (Cambridge, MA)

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

http://ocw.tufts.edu/TuftsOER

Berkeley or The University of California at Berkeley, California

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/

Johns Hopkins University, Maryland

http://ocw.jhsph.edu/

University of Notre Dame, Sound Bend, Indiana

http://ocw.nd.edu/

Utah State University, Logan, Utah

http://ocw.usu.edu/

JAPAN

University of Tokyo

http://ocw.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/

Kyoto University

http://ocw.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/

The United Nations University (Tokyo, Japan)

http://ocw.unu.edu/

SAMPLE THESE FREE ON-LINE JOURNALS  (Only article abstracts).

SAMPLE Free online journal issues in Development Studies from Wiley Blackwell

Wiley-Blackwell is offering free online access to SAMPLE issues of leading development studies journals.

To access the free issues, simply click on the relevant links below.

Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, Financial and Technical Series
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149345

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149346

African Development Review: Revue africaine de developpement
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149347

Bulletin of Latin American Research: Journal of the Society for Latin American Studies
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149348

Business Strategy and the Environment
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149349

China & World Economy
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149350

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149351

Culture & Agriculture
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149352

The Developing Economies
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149353

Developing World bioethics
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149354

Development and Change
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149355

Development Policy Review
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149356

Disasters
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149357

European Environment
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149358

GJ The Geographical Journal
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149359

Global Networks: a Journal of Transnational Affairs
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149360

Growth and Change: a Journal of Urban and Regional Policy
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149361

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149362

International Migration
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149363

International Migration Review
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149364

Journal of Agrarian Change
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149365

Journal of International Development
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149366

Journal of Regional Science
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149367

Journal of Urban Affairs: The Journal of the Urban Affairs Association
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149368

Land Degradation & Development
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149369

Latin American Politics and Society
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149370

The Latin Americanist
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149371

Middle east Policy
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149372

Natural Resources Forum: A United Nations Sustainable Development Journal
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149373

Pacific Focus: Inha Journal of International Sudies
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149374

Papers in Regional Science
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149375

Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149376

Population and Development Review
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149377

Population, Space and Place
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149378

Public Administration and Development
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149379

Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149380

Review of Development Economics
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149381

Studies in Family Planning
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149382

Sustainable Development
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149383

The Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149384

The World Economy
http://dmmsclick.wiley.com/click.asp?p=2320514&m=10986&u=149385

www.blackwellpublishing.com/developmentstudies