Podcasts about OpenCourseWare

You don't need a multibillion-dollar supercollider to detect subatomic particles. In fact, you can build a working cloud chamber—a device capable of revealing the cosmic radiation and radon decay events that go on continuously around us—with just a block of dry ice, some rubbing alcohol, and a few objects you probably already have in your kitchen. What's more, constructing the cloud chamber only takes about an hour, making it an ideal project for an introductory physics class, for intellectually engaged nonscientists, or even for curious kindergartners (with some adult supervision!). In this interview, engineering professor Anne White discusses the pedagogical usefulness of such hands-on activities—and at the other end of the spectrum, she describes her enthusiasm for a much, much larger physics project, the decades-long effort to put nuclear fusion to practical use as a source of clean power for the world. The interview also touches on Prof. White's experience of mentorship, both as mentee in her youth and as mentor now, and on the formative influence of childhood toys in paving the way for the kind of creative goal-driven tinkering that nuclear scientists and engineers practice.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProfessor White's faculty page22.011 Nuclear Engineering: Science, Systems and Society on MIT OpenCourseWareAnne White's article: Cloud Chamber Kit for Active Learning in a First-Year Undergraduate Nuclear Science Seminar Class (PDF)PBS NOVA video on making a kitchen cloud chamberMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn XOn InstagramOn LinkedInStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

How will AI disrupt the landscape of work and create job refugees? What does the future of Education look like in this technology-driven evolution?With a career spanning decades in academia and innovation, we unpack these questions (and more!) with Professor Sanjay Sarma, the Chief Executive Officer, President and Dean of the Asia School of Business. Sanjay served as the Vice President for Open Learning at MIT, where he oversaw OpenCourseWare and led the creation of MITx, MicroMasters, the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative and the Jameel World Education Lab. Fun fact: He played a part in developing many of the key technologies behind the EPC suite of RFID standards now used as a staple in industries worldwide!In this wide-ranging discussion, we dive into Sanjay's journey from MIT to ASB and hear all about:-     The turning point that led him from Engineering to Academia, and the story behind his move from USA to Asia -     The failures that have taught Sanjay valuable lessons-     Why an MBA is still relevant-     Exploring Agile Continuous Education (ACE) as a more impactful teaching methodology-     Why Curiosity and a Growth mindset is the most important skills in a post-GPT worldHIGHLIGHTS:8:05 The pivotal career turning point from Engineering into Academia 10:54 What led Sanjay to take up the role as CEO, President & Dean at Asia School of Business 15:07 The most rewarding and challenging parts of the role 19:02 What Sanjay learnt from a recent Failure27:17 The power of Reflection 30:48 How to be a more interesting person 35:21 How will AI create job refugees? 37:24 Essential skillsets for young professionals to thrive in the post-GPT world 38:22 Growth mindset is who we are 40:10 Is the MBA still relevant? 42:47 What Agile Continuous Education (ACE) would look like 48:44 What would the success of ACE look like? 50:38 The challenges of the ACE model 53:20 The value proposition of an ASB MBA 59:30 Impact of Generative AI on public policy-making and design CONNECT WITH US HERE:✨Instagram: Actsplore This Podcast

In episode 86 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir speaks to Professor Gil Strang. Professor Strang is one of the world's foremost mathematics educators and a mathematician with contributions to finite element theory, the calculus of variations, wavelet analysis, and linear algebra. He has spent six decades teaching mathematics at MIT, where he was the MathWorks Professor of Mathematics. He was among the first MIT faculty members to publish a course on MIT's OpenCourseware and has since championed both linear algebra education and open courseware.Have suggestions for future podcast guests (or other feedback)? Let us know here or reach us at editor@thegradient.pubSubscribe to The Gradient Podcast:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on TwitterOutline:* (00:00) Intro* (02:00) Professor Strang's background and journey into teaching linear algebra* (04:55) Undergrad interests* (07:10) Writing textbooks* (10:20) Prof. Strang's interests in deep learning* (11:00) How Professor Strang thought about teaching early on* (16:20) MIT OpenCourseWare and education accessibility* (19:50) Prof Strang's applied/example-based approach to teaching linear algebra and closing the theory-practice gap* (22:00) Examples!* (27:20) Orthogonality* (29:15) Singular values* (34:40) Professor Strang's favorite topics in linear algebra* (37:55) Pedagogical approaches to deep learning, mathematical ingredients of deep learning's complexity* (42:04) Generalization and double descent in deep learning, powers and limitations* (46:20) Did deep learning have to evolve as it did?* (48:30) Teaching deep learning to younger students* (50:50) How Prof. Strang's approach to teaching linear algebra has evolved over time* (53:00) The Four Fundamental Subspaces* (56:15) Reflections on a career in teaching* (59:49) OutroLinks:* Professor Strang's homepage Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe

The vast majority of American college students attend two thousand or so private and public institutions that might be described as the Middle—reputable educational institutions, but not considered equal to the elite and entrenched upper echelon of the Ivy League and other prestigious schools. Richard DeMillo has a warning for these colleges and universities in the Middle: If you do not change, you are heading for irrelevance and marginalization. In Abelard to Apple, DeMillo argues that these institutions, clinging precariously to a centuries-old model of higher education, are ignoring the social, historical, and economic forces at work in today's world. In the age of iTunes, open source software, and for-profit online universities, there are new rules for higher education. DeMillo, who has spent years in both academia and in industry, explains how higher education arrived at its current parlous state and offers a road map for the twenty-first century. He describes the evolving model for higher education, from European universities based on a medieval model to American land-grant colleges to Apple's iTunes U and MIT's OpenCourseWare. He offers ten rules to help colleges reinvent themselves (including “Don't romanticize your weaknesses”) and argues for a focus on teaching undergraduates. DeMillo's message—for colleges and universities, students, alumni, parents, employers, and politicians—is that any college or university can change course if it defines a compelling value proposition (one not based in “institutional envy” of Harvard and Berkeley) and imagines an institution that delivers it. Richard A. DeMillo is Distinguished Professor of Computing and Professor of Management, former John P. Imlay Dean of Computing, and Director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at Georgia Institute of Technology. Author of over 100 articles, books, and patents, he has held academic positions at Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Padua. He directed the Computer and Computation Research Division of the National Science Foundation and was Hewlett-Packard's first Chief Technology Officer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The vast majority of American college students attend two thousand or so private and public institutions that might be described as the Middle—reputable educational institutions, but not considered equal to the elite and entrenched upper echelon of the Ivy League and other prestigious schools. Richard DeMillo has a warning for these colleges and universities in the Middle: If you do not change, you are heading for irrelevance and marginalization. In Abelard to Apple, DeMillo argues that these institutions, clinging precariously to a centuries-old model of higher education, are ignoring the social, historical, and economic forces at work in today's world. In the age of iTunes, open source software, and for-profit online universities, there are new rules for higher education. DeMillo, who has spent years in both academia and in industry, explains how higher education arrived at its current parlous state and offers a road map for the twenty-first century. He describes the evolving model for higher education, from European universities based on a medieval model to American land-grant colleges to Apple's iTunes U and MIT's OpenCourseWare. He offers ten rules to help colleges reinvent themselves (including “Don't romanticize your weaknesses”) and argues for a focus on teaching undergraduates. DeMillo's message—for colleges and universities, students, alumni, parents, employers, and politicians—is that any college or university can change course if it defines a compelling value proposition (one not based in “institutional envy” of Harvard and Berkeley) and imagines an institution that delivers it. Richard A. DeMillo is Distinguished Professor of Computing and Professor of Management, former John P. Imlay Dean of Computing, and Director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at Georgia Institute of Technology. Author of over 100 articles, books, and patents, he has held academic positions at Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Padua. He directed the Computer and Computation Research Division of the National Science Foundation and was Hewlett-Packard's first Chief Technology Officer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We first interviewed Professor Michel DeGraff back in season 1; he now returns for another episode, diving deeper into issues of culture and identity. He talks about his childhood in Haiti, where he was punished at school for speaking his own mother tongue, and where he was taught by his teachers and even his parents that Kreyòl was not “a real language.” After doing early work in natural language processing that led him to question widespread assumptions about language, Prof. DeGraff shifted his academic focus to linguistics. He now begins each iteration of his course 24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities by asking his students to write linguistic autobiographies that describe the languages they grew up speaking and examine their own attitudes about language. In addition to discussing that course, he talks in this episode about his efforts to draw attention to language's role in perpetuating imbalances of power. As an added bonus, we hear from two students from 24.908, discussing how Prof. DeGraff helped cultivate trust in the classroom, and how that trust freed the students to enrich each other's understanding of the world by sharing personal experiences and insights.*English Translation of Prof. Michel DeGraff's Kreyòl Statement: So, my fellow countrymen,There's something that is very VERY important to understand:we must understand the origins of prejudices against Kreyòl.We must also remember that Dessalines said, so clearly,that everyone is human. And he also knew that,if everyone is human, then every language is a perfectly normal language.So Kreyòl, too, is a perfectly normal language.  That's why he said, since before 1804,that Kreyòl is our own language,so we don't need to always look for other languages to speak.Yes, we must remember, if we did not have Kreyòl as a language,we could never have succeeded in making this revolutionthat gave us an independent Haiti.Kreyòl was the language of the revolution.So, today, we must useKreyòl too as language of instruction.It is this language that will allow all children in Haiti to access quality education as their right.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Professor DeGraff's faculty page 24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities on OpenCourseWare The MIT-Haiti Initiative Chalk Radio Season 1 episode with Prof. DeGraffNY Times op-ed by Prof. DeGraff Linguistics and Economics in the Caribbean (article by Ianá Ferguson) Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions (https://www.sessions.blue/) Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our site On Facebook On Twitter On Instagram  Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. (https://ocw.mit.edu/newsletter/) Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

Many people associate the word “sustainability” with a few specific activities such as composting or recycling. Our guests for this episode, Dr. Liz-Potter-Nelson and Sarah Meyers, point out that sustainability is actually much broader, encompassing all the future-oriented practices that promote the continued flourishing of individuals, cultures, and life on earth. Dr. Potter-Nelson and Meyers have sought not only to make education a tool for sustainability but to make it a sustainable activity itself. In this episode, they describe how they created the Sustainability and Climate Change Across Learning Environments (SCALES) project, a curated repository of open-source, easily adaptable educational resources, many of them originally adapted from course materials on MIT OpenCourseWare. These resources, which are categorized according to a set of six main pedagogical approaches and six chief competency areas, draw from a surprisingly wide range of academic fields, but each was selected for its potential to support sustainability in the classroom and in the world. After all, Dr. Potter-Nelson and Meyers say, sustainability is an inherently interdisciplinary subject, one that can inform–and be informed by–teaching in nearly any field of study.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Dr. Potter-Nelson's website Sarah Meyers at MIT's Environmental Solutions Initiative Teaching with Sustainability resource on OpenCourseWare The SCALES Project Dr. Potter-Nelson's white paper on sustainability education United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions  Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our site On Facebook On Twitter On Instagram  Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.  Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

Nobody comes into this world already knowing how to teach—and most students arrive at undergraduate or graduate programs without any teaching experience at all. For those who are selected to be teaching assistants, the prospect of facing a classroom of students for the first time can be terrifying. To assuage those fears and provide pedagogical skills, the Biology department at MIT runs a training program for new TAs; our guest Dr. Summer Morrill helped develop the curriculum for that program, as well as serving as an instructor in it. In this episode, Dr. Morrill describes how she designed the content of the training program to reflect the specific challenges Biology TAs typically face in their first semester. Among the topics she discusses are the importance of empathy and inclusiveness in classroom teaching, how the same habits of thought that make effective biologists can also make especially effective teachers, and ways in which the course materials from the training program (which she is sharing in a forthcoming supplemental resource on OCW), would lend themselves to being usefully adapted for training TAs in other disciplines and at other institutions. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal RES.7-005 Biology Teaching Assistant (TA) Training on OCW (coming soon!)Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions  Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribeto the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.  Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware,donateto help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

As a followup to our January news story “Connecting Back to the Roots of OEGlobal at MIT” we sought to...

In this episode we meet Haynes Miller, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, who in his 35+ years of active teaching at MIT has done much to shape the institute's math curriculum. Prof. Miller's special focus is algebraic topology, but his teaching has encompassed a wide range of other topics from differential equations to number theory, and he has a special interest in teaching undergraduates. Join us as Prof. Miller discusses math education with guest host Paige Bright, a current MIT third-year student who was one of his students in a first-year seminar and who has since acquired teaching experience of her own as the instructor for the course Introduction to Metric Spaces during the Independent Activities Period in January 2022 and 2023. Among the topics they cover in this discussion are the importance of communication in mathematics, Prof. Miller's use of computer manipulatives (which he calls “mathlets”) to engage students more actively, what “lab work” means in the context of pure mathematics, how instructors from different institutions have come together online to discuss ways to improve undergraduate math education, and what happens when you ask students to switch roles and become teachers.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal 18.03 Differential Equations on OCW 18.821 Project Laboratory in Mathematics on OCW 18.915 Graduate Topology Seminar: Kan Seminar on OCW Paige Bright's course Introduction to 18.S097 Metric Spaces on OCW Prof. Miller's faculty page Prof. Miller's “manipulatives” at mathlets.org Online Seminar on Undergraduate Mathematics Education (OLSUME) Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions  Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our site On Facebook On Twitter On Instagram  Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!  CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

Eric Grimson is MIT's chancellor for academic advancement and interim vice president for Open Learning; he's also a longstanding professor of computer science and medical engineering. In this episode, Prof. Grimson shares his thoughts on in-person and online education. We learn that he rehearses each lecture one, two, or even three times before coming to the classroom, and that he often pauses in his speech when lecturing to avoid distracting his students with “um”s and “ah”s and similar disfluencies. But though some of the techniques he describes might seem to reflect a view of teaching as performance, Grimson firmly believes that education should be a dialogue rather than a monologue—that students should be engaged as partners in the exploration of the material, even in an introductory-level class. “Anybody with enough curiosity ought to be able to explore a field,” he says, “and we ought to be able to teach at a level that opens it up to them.” The same conviction underlies his commitment to sharing his expertise online, whether by publishing his course materials on MIT OpenCourseWare or through purpose-built MOOCs on MITx. [Warning: this episode also includes numerous bad jokes!]     Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal 6.0001 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python on OCW 6.0002 Introduction To Computational Thinking And Data Science on OCWProfessor Grimson's faculty page Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions  Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn Facebook On Twitter On Instagram  Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

I speak with Class of 2022 Foster MBA grad, Xiajin "XJ" Cai. XJ is originally from China, and started her MBA at Foster in the Fall of 2020, while classes and most activities were being conducted remotely.  I was impressed with the way she engaged not only in the Foster community, through clubs, and recruiting activities, but also participated in case competitions beyond Foster. I wanted to have her on the show to talk about her experiences as an international student, how she handled internship and full time recruiting, and the experience and skills she gained through case competitions.   Learn SQL or other programming languages with online education sites like Coursera, EdX, or OpenCourseWare from MIT The After Hours podcast from the Ted Radio Collective Look for resources on mock interviews, case interviews, google mock interviews + consulting firm name, find videos about how they are conducted. AT&T She Counts case competition, read about XJ and her teammate on the Foster Blog MyVisaJobs.com and H1BGrader.com to find companies that have sponsored H1B Visas previously.

MIT has long been an innovator in online education. For even longer—for its whole history, in fact—it has championed hands-on learning. These two emphases may seem incompatible, but the MICRO initiative draws on both in an effort to increase diversity within the field of materials science. Dr. Jessica Sandland and Dr. Cécile Chazot, our guests for this episode, describe how MICRO recruits undergraduates from minoritized backgrounds to do impactful research remotely in collaboration with MIT researchers. Dr. Sandland and Dr. Chazot see this collaboration as a mutually beneficial relationship: the MICRO students gain valuable experience in cutting-edge research, as well as an introduction to a field they may not have had the opportunity to study previously, while the MIT researchers benefit both from the students' work on the projects and from the fresh perspectives they bring to the field. In this episode, we also hear how MICRO supports participants' professional development with guidance from “near-peer” grad-student mentors, who provide help not only in technical matters but also in developing soft skills such as writing abstracts or defining questions for research.  Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalMICRO resource on OCWMentoring worksheets: Defining a Research Project and Aligning Expectations (PDF)Planning and Managing Remote Research Tasks (PDF)Effective and Inclusive Communication in Remote Mode (PDF)Fostering Independence (PDF)Establishing a Network of Mentors: The Mentoring Map (PDF)  Abstracts of research by MICRO participantsApply to MICRODr. Sandland's faculty pageDr. Chazot's websiteMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producerShow notes by Peter Chipman 

Do you always make the best possible choices, even when you're stressed or short on sleep? The ideally rational person (“Homo economicus”) assumed by conventional economics always acts in ways that are materially advantageous to them. But Associate Professor Frank Schilbach seeks in his research and teaching to explore the ways in which Homo economicus fails as a model of actual human behavior; in particular, Prof. Schilbach is interested in uncovering the psychological factors that influence people's choices, even when those choices appear obviously counterproductive and irrational. In this episode, Prof. Schilbach discusses how psychologically-informed interventions can not only boost people's productivity, earnings, and savings, but can even increase their tendency toward benevolence and cooperation. As he puts it, while economists have not ignored mental health altogether, they have tended to view it instrumentally, in terms of its effects on productivity or financial stability. It would be better, he suggests, to view mental health as valuable for its own sake, as an inherent element of overall well-being–which is why he prioritizes students' mental health by making assignments due not first thing in the morning but at 6 or 8 PM!Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Professor Schilbach's behavioral economics course on OCWProfessor Schilbach's faculty pageProfessor Schilbach at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action LabMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with Us:If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay Current:Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCW:If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!Credits:Sarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

To most people, especially those who are too young to remember the Cold War, the possibility of nuclear Armageddon may seem so remote as not to be worth contemplating. But Prof. Bob Redwine and Jim Walsh, two of the instructors behind MIT's Nuclear Weapons Education Project (NWEP), warn that it may not be so unlikely after all, and that failure to take the threat of nuclear war seriously makes it more likely that it will actually occur. Redwine, Walsh, and their colleagues used their expertise from a wide array of fields to create the NWEP and its associated course 8.S271 Nuclear Weapons – History and Prospects. Together, the course and the project website represent an interdisciplinary effort to educate nonspecialists on the science, technology, and history of nuclear weapons, along with present efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and to reach international agreements to reduce the likelihood of a world-devastating conflict. In this episode, we hear how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed geopolitics forever, how a well-intentioned nuclear doctrine may have disastrous unintended consequences, and why understanding the topic of nuclear weapons requires an interdisciplinary approach. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal Professor Redwine's faculty pageJim Walsh's faculty page8.S271 Nuclear Weapons - History and Future Prospects on OCWNuclear Weapons Education Project website“Nuclear Gets Personal with Prof. Michael Short” (Chalk Radio episode)Music in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with Us:If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay Current:Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

Professor Gigliola Staffilani, who teaches in MIT's Department of Mathematics, was closely involved in designing and teaching the introductory-level 18.01 Calculus I course series now found on the MIT Open Learning Library. She's also been involved in teaching calculus to students on campus. To help students become proficient in a notoriously intimidating subject, she has tried to design learning experiences that bridge the gap between the pure abstractions that mathematicians love, exemplified by the use of conventional notation such as x, y, and f(x), and the concrete real-world situations in which calculus is typically applied in other fields such as chemistry or physics. In this episode, Prof. Staffilani discusses her efforts to make calculus less abstract and more intuitive for learners–efforts that draw on a diverse mix of teaching tools and props: digital applets, sketching tools, bagels, croissants, donuts, and even a balloon in a box. She also discusses her commitment to increasing equity and fighting implicit bias in her field.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching insightsProfessor Staffilani's faculty pageSingle variable calculus courses on MIT's Open Learning Library18.01 Calculus I: Single Variable Calculus on OCWMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

Chewing glass is what Solana developers do. Introducing the fifth episode in a new series on the Solana Podcast, Chewing Glass. Chase Barker (Developer Relations Lead at Solana Labs) talks shop with the most interesting builders in the Solana ecosystem. It's for devs, by devs.Today's guest is Cronos, an on-chain task scheduler that allows users to schedule instructions and winner of the recent Riptide Hackathon. 00:38 - Introductions01:25 - How they started                 02:48 - How they met                     04:26  - Who else is in Austin            05:09  -  Cronos backstory                 07:34 - How they started building tasks    09:11 - TLDR: what is Cronos?              13:33  - Winning the Riptide Hackathon               15:40  - How cronos came to life           18:12 - Building on solana and familiarity with other languages20:16  - Learning curve with rust         22:50 -  Nick's  learning curve              25:04 -  Advice on learning curve         27:08 - What's missing in Solana         29:20  - Advice to new developers on Solana DISCLAIMERThe information on this podcast is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose.The information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice.The information on this podcast is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional broker or financial advisor.  Chase (00:38):Hey everybody. And welcome to Chewing Glass, the show where we talk to developers building in the Solana ecosystem. Today, we have Nick and Elias from Cronos, the recent winners of the Riptide Hackathon. Welcome guys. How's it going?Elias (00:50):It's going well.Nick (00:51):Yeah, great to be here.Chase (00:52):So let's start with you, Nick. What's your history? How'd you get into this whole thing?Nick (00:56):My background is basically, I worked on the payments team at Uber for about four years or so, helping build out the payroll system there. And so, was working on a lot of international banking integrations and just became very aware how broken the current legacy payment system is. Can't really even tell you the number of times I got woken up at 4:00 AM because some system failed somewhere and had to email a CSV file to some banker to push money through the system, it happens all the time.Nick (01:28):And so I heard about Solana and I had a light bulb moment really, where I realized that this thing is cheaper and faster and easier to use than any existing payment rails that I know about and so, I got quite excited about the potential for disruption there and this was all pre Solana Pay stuff. So, yeah, we dove in during the Ignition Hackathon.Chase (01:52):Oh, you did? Cool.Nick (01:53):Yeah.Chase (01:53):Yeah, I didn't realize that. I was actually, when you were talking, I was thinking in my head, I was like payments? I was like, wow, didn't even build anything on Solana Pay. So you guys were already rolling a little bit before that, so that's cool. Yeah. So Elias, how about you?Elias (02:06):I'm pretty fresh as far as experience in industry. I did have an internship in college as a data scientist in Argentina for a bit. I then transitioned into front-end development that following year and had been a front-end developer up until when I got into Solana development. But that's pretty much it.Chase (02:23):Cool. So, with all that said, you guys' backgrounds, how did you guys end up meeting each other? What's the story? Are you in the same place? You guys are in the same city? How did that work?Nick (02:34):We're both in Austin. Elias is a few minutes north of Austin. I'm kind of downtown and we meet up down here a few days a week. We basically met on Twitter last summer.Elias (02:45):Yeah. I was at Samsung before I met Nick. I was basically a site reliability engineer for this semiconductor facility here in Austin. I didn't love it. I absolutely hated it. So I was creating toy projects on GitHub just for front-end development purposes, just to better my skills, because I wasn't really progressing that well at Samsung. I was then tweeting about it and my philosophy was, well, what's the worst that could happen? Someone's going to see this and maybe look at my repo, who knows?Elias (03:13):Randomly I get a DM from this guy named Nick. He was like, "Hey, I like what you're doing. I looked at your GitHub. We're looking for front-end developers at this product studio that we have in Austin. I would love to grab a beer." And that's really where it started.Chase (03:25):Oh wow. That's awesome. I thought that stuff only happened in Web 3, but I guess it's happening outside of that too. So how did you find that tweet, Nick, in the first place?Nick (03:36):I don't remember, honestly. It's like scrolling the timeline, don't really remember what you saw 10 minutes ago. But, I think I saw Elias tweeting, maybe a GitHub link or something, saw he was a dev and I was just looking through his projects on GitHub. And, I found his resume actually and everything there was kind of focused around like Next.js and React, which we were doing a lot with at the time. And so, I figured sending a DM couldn't hurt and just kind of realized that he was based in Austin. I had just moved here, I think a week or so prior and we met up and grabbed a beer and just hit it off from there and have been working together since.Chase (04:18):Very cool. I think there's a couple other people in Austin. I believe Castle Finance is there. There's actually a pretty decent Solana builder presence at University of Texas at Austin.Nick (04:30):The [inaudible 00:04:30] team is here as well.Chase (04:31):Oh nice.Elias (04:32):I think BuffaLou is also here.Chase (04:34):BuffaLou? The famous BuffaLou is in Austin. Are we doxxing him over here?Elias (04:37):No, he's tweeted about it.Chase (04:39):I'm just kidding. So, that's pretty cool to hear the story about how you guys met. Now, let's dive into a little bit, go a little bit further. Where did this idea get birthed or what were you building? And start at Ignition and lead up to how the idea of Cronos came about.Nick (04:55):As we were saying before, we were looking at Solana initially from that perspective of payments and coming from the payments industry. And so we started in the Ignition Hackathon building an on-chain Venmo where users could send and receive invoices and pay those back on-chain. And then that kind of rolled into a token streaming service. And-Chase (05:16):Was that called Cronos or did it have a name at the point in time?Nick (05:20):Yeah, that was called Factor at the time. What we were specializing on was the use cases of subscription payments and payroll. And specifically we were trying to figure out how to schedule token transfers because it's kind of these inefficiencies in the vesting contract model where the sender has to lock up future payments up front into investing contract. So there's some inefficiency there. And the receiver has to go out of the way to claim from the vesting contract. So we thought if we could schedule token transfers, maybe that would be a better user experience.Nick (05:52):And we were working on that for a few months, got the whole system up and running. And then around February 1st, 2022, when mtnDAO was taking off, we realized that we could generalize that protocol from only supporting token transfers to being able to automate any arbitrary instruction. And from there it just took on a life of its own.Chase (06:14):So you guys were at mtnDAO?Nick (06:16):Yeah, I was at mtnDAO before it was mtnDAO. There was a version of it in 2021 called Mountain Compound. It was way smaller, but it was 14 of us, or so, just locked down in a house, trying to escape COVID, in Salt Lake City. And that was where I first met Edgar and Barrett. Barrett, at the time, was already working on Solana and Edgar and I were working on separate startups, but I think we both got the Solana pill during that time.Chase (06:47):Man. Wasn't expecting that one. That's a really cool story, actually. Those guys are involved in red-pilling a lot of people on to Solana, so I'm always happy to hear these stories. They just keep coming up randomly wherever I go.Nick (06:58):Yeah.Chase (07:00):Yeah, so that's awesome. So when you were building this payment stuff, the idea came around at mtnDAO, and that was, or right at the beginning-ish, I think, of Riptide. TJ was just on the show. That's when he started to talk about building out mtnPay. So you guys were like, "okay, we were doing payments, we just came up with this thing. We think we have solved a really big problem and we're going to build this out." Tell me a little bit more about that.Nick (07:25):Yeah, it started with just a proof of concept. So we just had this basic question of, can you even schedule arbitrary instructions on-chain? And how do you do that? So we started by building a basic Anchor program where users could create tasks and each task is a different account. And inside those accounts we would store serialized instruction data with a schedule.Nick (07:50):We basically had set up a separate off-chain bot process, also written in Rust, but using the RPC client. Which basically watched for task accounts and then would trigger transactions whenever the tasks came due. And we found that we could invoke those inner instructions as CPIs and that then unlocked this whole like, okay, we can schedule any arbitrary instruction.Elias (08:15):Yeah. I remember whenever he called me on our sync, I think it was on Monday because he built the proof of concept during the weekend. He told me, "you know, we have Factor and it's really cool, but imagine if we just generalized it to allow for any arbitrary instruction." And I was like, "Oh. Yeah, let's do that. That's a good idea."Chase (08:33):Yeah, I was really stoked. I remember seeing it the first time and I saw what it was and I was like, "Wow, people are really going to like this." By the way you guys are both technical founders. You both built out Cronos, correct?Nick (08:45):Yeah, correct.Nick (08:46):Mostly Nick, let me just... Mostly Nick.Chase (08:49):Actually, this is probably a good point to talk about what Cronos actually is officially. Like a TLDR for everybody watching. What you guys built and how it actually works at a high level?Nick (09:01):The basic concept is, it's just a keeper network for Solana. Every blockchain, at least that we're aware of right now, has this fundamental limitation and that's, you can't schedule transactions with a validator network and there's a few different reasons why that's the case. But it creates challenges for teams that have background jobs or tasks that they need to run just to make their programs work. And so, what Cronos is, is a keeper network to be able to facilitate that and service that. But the main difference is that we're kind of turning the Solana validators into the keepers for the system rather than relying on some external, off-chain, opaque bot network. And so that's required a lot of deep integration with the validator codebase in order to enable that.Chase (09:48):That is actually very, very cool. I wasn't officially, 100% certain how it worked. So you're using the validators as the keeper network to run these jobs on the network?Nick (09:58):Yeah, exactly. Our v1, proof of concept version was not integrated into the validator network. Hadn't even had that idea at the time, really.Elias (10:08):I didn't even know we could do that, knowing that we can just build a plugin for validators. Pretty cool.Nick (10:13):Yeah, it was around the same time we were building that initial bot that we started seeing some tweets about the account's DB plugin framework. And that has since been renamed to Geyser plugin framework and we just realized that there was all these scaling problems when you rely on these off-chain bots and that they have to submit transactions through the RPC network. And that can take up a whole bunch of bandwidth and you have to compete with other traffic to get those transactions through. And we realized there was this interface that Solana was providing, and the Geyser plugin framework, that we could actually spawn transactions from there. And it was much more efficient and made the system a lot more reliable. And so we basically copy pasted our bot code into the Geyser plugin framework and it mostly just worked out of the box.Chase (11:01):Oh wow. And that's quite unusual. For things that just work. So did you guys actually have to work with the validator community or did you guys have ever set up or run a validator? What's your knowledge there?Nick (11:12):Yeah, we have a few nodes that we got through the Solana server program, which that is a very useful program, if there's anyone that's looking to set up a node on Solana. And we have some servers running on DevNet and Testnet right now, that we're using to stress test the system. But yeah, we've been reaching out to all the node operators we can to talk with them and we're looking to get this thing rolled out on DevNet and Testnet quite soon. And actually, by the time this is published, it should be out on DevNet and Testnet, and we'll have quite a few integrations going on those networks.Chase (11:49):Yeah. I'm not going to lie. So like just leading in the sense, congratulations, you guys won the Riptide Hackathon. This was super incredible. And for me personally, I was so insanely excited to see some tooling win because this is just... developers need this tooling and to see that people watching a hackathon and a lot of these other, in the past, DeFi protocols, which are amazing out there, winning, but to see developer tooling take the grand prize, says a lot about what you guys had built and what the judges thought of it. So, that's quite amazing. So congratulations. But tell me, what was that like? Were you guys, have any idea, any expectations? Like what was your thoughts going through all that?Nick (12:33):Man. Yeah, there was a lot going on at the time, even, even outside the Riptide Hackathon. It was quite a journey, I think, to get here. Cronos was what we wish we had when we were building Factor. We came upon the idea for Cronos because we were trying to build Factor, this scheduled token transfer service. And we're like, "how do you schedule a timer on-chain?" And then we found out you couldn't schedule a timer on-chain, there just isn't a way. So we were talking to some other teams and I think it was, he goes by DoctorBlocks, at Switchboard. He described for us what a Crank function was and how they were running their automations. And from there we just started pulling on that thread and realized that here was all this dev tooling that was missing that we could build out and just started running with it.Chase (13:22):Were you expecting to win the grand prize of the hackathon? How did you react whenever you actually found out that you guys had won that thing? Was there-Nick (13:30):I didn't know we were going to win. We had been getting tips from a few people that we were on these ever shorter shortlists, but we didn't know until the moment of, that the blog post went out, someone sent it to me and then a moment later, Twitter started blowing up. And from there it was just a flood of inbound messages coming in from all directions. And last few weeks have been a lot of dealing with that.Elias (13:57):Yeah. A lot of dealing about knowing what is spam and what isn't from people it's pretty difficult to do.Chase (14:03):So did you guys celebrate, did you guys go out for beers? Like you did the first time you met? Did you do anything?Elias (14:08):Sure did.Nick (14:09):Yeah.Chase (14:11):That's awesome, man. Like I said, it's really great to see some developer tooling win and that value in that. Whenever I started at Solana Labs, like a year ago, there was no developer tooling out there. This was like... Then comes Armani and then here's Anchor. And then now we have all these indexers and then now we have Cronos and they just keep piling on. And eventually we're going to reach a place where every little narrow gap is covered and developers are going to be able to just jump in and do all the things that they could do in Web 2, in Web 3 and it's going to be a huge game changer for everybody. Not quite there, or we're pretty far off from there, I would say. Every tool like this really, really matters.Elias (14:51):To piggyback off that, the most exciting part about this job is not only building it and dealing with really interesting engineering problems, but knowing the impact that it will have to developers and how empowering it is to allow them to automate things on-chain. That's a pretty wild idea. So I'm really excited for that.Chase (15:09):Yeah and I think that's why a lot of engineers get into building out developer tooling instead of products because they're engineers themselves. And they're like, "man, if I was like on the other end of this and somebody built this tool, I'd be so stoked." And how many people that outwardly impacts is probably just a really incredible feeling. And it's just really awesome. So sorry, Factor, but I'm glad that Cronos ended up winning. By the way, is Factor just kind of sitting on a shelf somewhere right now, never to be reopened again?Nick (15:38):Yeah. We, we kind of just rolled Factor into Cronos. Actually the Twitter account is the same Twitter. We just changed the name now.Chase (15:46):Nice. Okay. So it's dead.Nick (15:48):Yeah.Elias (15:49):Dead, but very much alive.Nick (15:51):Yeah.Chase (15:52):Yeah. If Cronos would've never came alive, you would've been sitting at the mtnDAO with TJ, directly competing against each other. So, that's awesome. So basically two of these projects were the winning of the payments track and then the grand champion of Riptide. They both came out of mtnDAO. Every time I hear about mtnDAO and we talk about this, it's one more reason why understanding how incredible it was out there and how many builders were out there building really cool stuff.Elias (16:20):Yeah, the community in Salt Lake was amazing just knowing that you were in the same boat with all these developers. Either just getting into Solana or being in it just recently. Learning Rust and learning the runtime environment and what is possible on Solana is really crazy. And everyone was trying to help each other and answered questions. And if you didn't know the answer, they would direct you to somebody else. And everyone's just like, "yeah, let me help you with this," which is my favorite part about that.Nick (16:48):Yeah, it's been really cool to see communities pop up. Also happening right now is like AthensDAO in Greece. And unfortunately we weren't able to make it there, but I think we'll see, over the coming months, a few more of these communities start to pop up that are a bit more like longer running than just the kind of week long hacker house format.Chase (17:06):Yeah. I'm a big fan of the community run hacker houses and all these sorts of things like mtnDAO, just because whenever it's built out with the community like that, it just forms this other type of bond with everybody and it's just really exciting to see all that happen.Chase (17:23):This is the point in the show where we shift gears a little bit. We talked about that excitement, how Cronos came alive, you guys winning Riptide and now I want to talk about what that experience was like for you guys. Because this is the very important part of this show where we talk about what sucked and what was good and what could be better. So, I want to start with Elias this time. You came from a front-end engineering background? What's actually the languages that you had touched before you came to start building on Solana?Elias (17:58):Even before I was a front-end developer, I was dabbling in data science for a bit. It was a lot of fun, but a bit too meticulous for my taste. So I was dealing with a lot of Python. Fast forward to when I graduate, I was really interested in front-end development, got pretty good at helping with some friends and building toy applications and TypeScript React, some toy web apps with Next.js. And then that's whenever, like I said, met Nick, joined the team and I was building front-end applications for a while at, like, six months. And then I found, like a lot of people who started their Web 3 journey, Nader Dabit's Ethereum article on how to... It was like a super simple... I forget exactly the context of what the project was, but it was on dev.to. And read through it and tried to understand what is this environment? What is this dev environment? What's going on? Not too long after I found Solana and Nick also brought it up, was like, "Hey, we should maybe look into this." And then-Chase (18:53):Did you do Dabit's tutorial on Solana too?Elias (18:55):I did. Yeah, I did. Yeah.Chase (18:56):Yeah.Elias (18:57):It was a lot simpler. I don't know. But also more difficult in some ways. When we were working on Factor, Nick gave me the talk like, "Hey, we may not need front-end developers. So there's a chance that I need you to flex over to becoming a Rust engineer, which is, you know-Chase (19:13):So he didn't fire you?Elias (19:15):No, no he did not. Luckily. Yeah. So fast forward to like mtnDAO when we know finally realize Cronos has a lot of potential. I buy the book that a lot of people seem to have and I have it on my desk right here, the programming Rust book. And it's been my north star, I would say, as far as growing my skills as a Rust engineer, as well as living in the Solana repo and Anchor repos.Chase (19:39):So you guys are building this in straight Rust? Are you guys also using Anchor?Elias (19:44):Yeah. So in the core of Cronos, it's a lot of Anchor. A lot of what I deal with, I'm building and optimizing the Geyser plugin that we have to listen to Cronos accounts and execute tasks when needed. That's just built in Rust and other like asynchronous libraries and things like that, but not Anchor specifically.Chase (20:03):This is the part, the glass chewing, what was your learning curve during that process of learning Rust coming from front-end? Was it as painful as everybody says? Everybody's different on this front, so what was that like to learn Rust?Elias (20:16):A big mistake that I would advise people attempting to get into the space would be first of all, just learn Rust by itself first. At least start there and understand that it is different from Anchor. And it's just a framework that lives with Rust. And then try to understand the Solana runtime just a little bit. And those are three separate entities, but they all coexist and you need the three in order to make a simple to do app in Rust on-chain. So differentiating between those three different entities is really important. And if you just jump straight into a Solana Anchor project, not knowing Rush, you're going to get really confused and pretty frustrated.Chase (20:52):So for you, was it hard or was it just time consuming? You just had to grind it out and you learned along the way?Elias (20:58):Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things that you just have to do every day. You have to, you know, for me every morning before we would go to the mtnDAO-Chase (21:06):Glass for breakfast.Elias (21:07):Yeah, I would literally just sit on the couch and wait for Nick to finish showering before we drove to the office. And I would just read a chapter of the programming Rush book and it would just go over super simple things like structs and basic functions. And if you're a software engineer, it's not too difficult to transition into Rust, it's just another programming language just in the different context. And it looks a little weird with two semicolons next to each other or whatever, syntax. But it's not too bad. One of those things you just got to do every day. And then before you know it, you'll just hit the road running. It's pretty nice.Chase (21:39):I think a lot of people talk about chewing glass, like it's actually Solana, that's the real glass chewing, about learning the native concepts, like using PDAs and these things. And there are people out there who just don't ever end up learning Rust and they never actually tried it. They never just sat down and did it. You could get a little bit resistant to it just because it looks so foreign.Chase (22:00):And then the other part is, I've done a couple of Twitter Spaces around this exact same thing about you saying start with Rust. That's my recommendation always start with the base layer before you're using any sort of framework or anything that's intertwined in it, but there are people out there on the other side of the camp that say, just start with Anchor. I obviously disagree, because I think learning that first base language is always going to be the best. And it's going to save you down the road when you're running into issues.Chase (22:27):I'm going to go ahead and ask you Nick, kind of the same question, what your experience was like? What did you do to learn it? Was it similar to Elias? Was it hard? Was it easy? Was it just time consuming? What would that look like?Nick (22:39):I had some background working in back-end systems. Yeah, for my time out in California, I had worked mostly with Go prior and actually first tried picking up Rust in 2020, because I'd seen it was the most popular language on GitHub and it was just like, what is this? And I actually hated it the first time I looked at it because I was coming from that Go world. And Go is designed to be super ergonomic and easy to read and talk about and communicate and Rust is more optimized for performance,Chase (23:13):Performance and pain.Nick (23:16):Yeah. And so I hated Rust when I first looked at it, and I pushed it off to the side and didn't actually look at it again until we dove into Solana. I've since come to love it. It is a little bit steeper of a learning curve and there are some extra pieces to the mental model that you need, in terms of understanding memory and ownership of variables and how all that stuff works, lifetimes, for example, that other languages don't have. So that makes it a little more complicated or harder to learn. But it's not anything that can't be overcome, I think. It's just another programming language.Nick (23:50):But yeah, definitely breaking apart, as Elias said, the difference between Rust problems, Anchor problems and Solana problems and understanding that these are all like three different systems is probably the hardest thing when you're first diving into Solana because it all looks the same and all the error messages are cryptic and if you don't have a whole lot of debugging experience, it can be hard to pull that thread because all this stuff is quite new and a lot of devs, I think have the pattern of, you get an error message you don't understand, copy it in a Google and see what Stack Overflow results come up. Usually we're running into problems that no other devs have run into yet. And it's just like-Chase (24:28):It's actually pretty cool though. Like to be one of the first group of people on the planet. You guys are going to be the ones who answer these Stack Overflow questions in the future because that always starts somewhere. The first guy had to just figure it out.Elias (24:40):It's cool, but you're like, "I don't know what to do now." I guess we're just going to have to figure it out. So that's where I would just go to the Solana codebase and Nick has recommended multiple times. Just go live in there, you'll understand the runtime environment better, your errors will be easier to debug. It's a lot. The Solana codebase is a lot, but there are parts of it that really help you understand what is going on underneath.Chase (25:03):A lot of people come from Web 2, and again, I'm one of those people. We're used to having our hands held. We're used to being able to find the answers we want. We're used to all these pretty, amazing tutorials and all these different things. And when that's not the case, it makes it a lot harder. Sadly enough, not everybody's this reverse engineering code diver that's going to go do that sort of thing. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and sometimes, at the end of the day, there might not be considered the greatest payoff for all that work. But the true engineers, the ones who just like to figure shit out, are going to go do that and then they're going to figure it out and then they're going to build Cronos. So it's awesome.Nick (25:43):It's definitely how you know you're on the bleeding edge, is when Google doesn't come up with any results for your error message.Chase (25:49):Zero results.Nick (25:51):Yeah.Elias (25:52):The beautiful, no search results for that Google search and like, well, okay cool. Like whatever.Nick (25:57):Yeah. I Would say to any devs that find themselves in this situation, the Anchor discord in particular is my new Google for trying to find solutions to these problems. And usually, 70% of the time, someone has asked about some of the error problems like we're running into in the Anchor discord somewhere. And there's been someone that is able to chime in and help and Armani and the team that's there is extremely helpful in terms of answering questions and generous with their time.Chase (26:27):And Alan and everybody that's out there and Jacob who's on our DevRel team and Donny. There's so many people and these are guys that are actually working on like Serum and Anchor and Solana Labs and all that stuff. But outside of that, the community of people just helping each other solve these problems, it's amazing to watch it happen in real life.Chase (26:48):We've been going on for a while now and I want both of you, if you can, to tell me what is missing from Solana right now, like in tooling? You guys just created one that was missing, where you were seeing a lot of tooling come out.Elias (26:59):I have one.Chase (27:00):Okay. All right, we'll start with you Elias. What are we missing right now?Elias (27:04):I'm probably stealing this from Matt because he's probably thinking about it, but one thing we've ran into recently is DevOps pipelining. It's pretty difficult to handle versioning from so many different projects. And when we're developing, we're having to stay ahead of Mainnet and work on Testnet and it's a very complicated, and different projects do it differently, but right now in our repo, we have a forked version of Anchor just so that we have up-to-date versions of Anchor, but using some different-Nick (27:32):The latest Solana dependency versions.Elias (27:34):Yes. So that right now is something that we have to build, but if there's a way to do that at scale for a lot of other teams, that'd be great.Chase (27:41):Yeah, that's not the first time I've heard that one, but that's a good one. I hear it just because I'm always paying attention to a lot of different places, but I don't know if everybody, except the ones who are coming into this problem actually know that this is something that's kind of necessary. It's not one of the ones that people are most vocal about. It's usually error codes and indexers and all these things. So Nick, did Elias steal yours or do you got something else for us?Nick (28:05):No, I think that's a great one. There's, at least for what we're doing, where we have both on-chain programs and a plugin, that we're trying to ship DevOps challenges around keeping the versions in sync between those two pieces can be challenging. And then, I guess something that's been on my mind a little bit is how there was a DeGit project in the Riptide Hackathon, decentralized Git, which I think, stuff in that space like decentralized DevOps processes and how does a decentralized global team of engineers contribute to a protocol and how do you keep the community open, but also secure, is, I think, an unsolved problem at this point.Chase (28:50):Well, I look forward to the Cronos team actually building out this suite of tools, all of it.Nick (28:56):A few pieces, but yeah.Chase (28:58):Yeah. So I usually wrap these shows up just asking what advice would you give to somebody who's thinking, on the other side, "Hmm, maybe I'm about to jump into Solana. I'm not sure if I want to put in the effort to build something." What general advice would you give somebody who was going to build or is building on Solana right now?Elias (29:17):If you're frustrated with learning Rust, but you're really wanting to build on Solana, then you're doing it right. You're not doing it right if you're not frustrated, that's the chewing glass part.Chase (29:27):Yeah.Elias (29:27):Just keep going. Because at some point you'll be able to look at other projects and their smart contracts and go, "oh, I see what they're doing." Like right now I'm looking at the Holaplex, that's called RabbitMQ plugin or Geyser plugin, shout out to the Holaplex team, and trying to understand why they made certain engineering designs with their plugin and see what we can take from. And that's just the beauty of open source of course. But yeah, if I wasn't chewing glass consistently and I wasn't looking at code and other repos, then I wouldn't be able to do that.Chase (29:58):Yeah. That's awesome. And like it is, I wish everybody would start open sourcing their code out there, but we'll get there eventually. How about you Nick, what kind of advice do you have? And again, we've kind of talked about a few good ideas for the community, so what do you think?Nick (30:13):Yeah, I think probably two things, as Elias mentioned, spending time in the Solana repo, it's helped a lot. There's a lot of patterns in there that, if you're trying to get familiar with Rust, it's a great resource to learn from. And the second thing is to actually read the error messages that you get back, because when you actually pull on that thread, they are very cryptic error messages a lot of times, but they do have information that leads you to the bug and the problem or points you in the right direction, maybe is the best way to put it. I find that skill, that debugging skill is like a muscle that needs to be trained and learned and doesn't always come supernaturally, because it's just hard. But yeah, reading error messages and trying to decipher what they're telling you is a fundamental exercise to dealing with large complex systems.Chase (31:10):Yeah, and it's also just a really cool skillset to have, to be able to just do these manual debugging stuff. Yeah. Like you said it becomes like a natural kind of mental muscle that all of a sudden, now it just happens quite naturally, once you get to a certain point.Elias (31:23):Yeah. One thing for those interested in just in general, distributed systems, trying to understand Solana a little bit better from a higher level, there's a great YouTube course from MIT. If you just search "distributed systems MIT", it's an OpenCourseWare, like 12 lecture series, just to understand like RPCs, multi-threading, concurrency, consensus and things like that. It's really beneficial to understanding distributed systems, blockchains, well, not necessarily blockchains, but at least for Solana distributed systems.Chase (31:55):Awesome. Yeah. There's a lot of people that come into blockchain and they don't even really know what a distributed system is. And then a lot of the times it's like, hey, go actually read about like what this thing is before diving into this.Chase (32:07):All right guys. Well really, really, thanks for coming on the show. I'm glad that we got to catch up. Congratulations winning Riptide. I'll talk to you later.Nick (32:16):Yeah. Well see you in Austin.Elias (32:17):Sounds good. Yeah, see you in Austin.Chase (32:19):All right. Cheers.

Though there's widespread consensus that the slavery and colonization that characterize the history of European relations with Africa represent a legacy of grave injustice, there is much less agreement on how to redress that injustice. Professor M. Amah Edoh, who teaches in MIT's Department of Anthropology, designed the course 21A.S01 Reparations for Slavery and Colonization with the goal of honestly facing the historical record and openly discussing how best to respond. Because she believes expertise is too often conceived of as something that flows “north-south” from the developed nations toward the developing world, she structured the course to embrace expertise wherever it might be found—recruiting guest lecturers from various disciplines and from institutions around the world, as well as activists currently involved in the quest for reparative justice. She even went a step further, sharing the lecture videos on YouTube while the semester was still ongoing and inviting viewers to contribute their own insights into how to deal with the ongoing legacy of historical wrongs. In this episode, Prof. Edoh describes the motivation for this innovative course structure and reflects on the challenges of grappling with such a sensitive subject.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching insightsProfessor Edoh's faculty pageCourse materials by Professor Edoh on OCW21A.S01 Reparations for Slavery and ColonizationOpen Learning story on 21A.S01OCW YouTube playlist for 21A.S01Africa's Expertise (YouTube lecture by Prof Edoh)African Futures Action LabHow Africa Has Been Made to Mean (2020 episode of Chalk Radio)Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer (https://twitter.com/learning_sarah)Brett Paci, producer  (https://twitter.com/Brett_Paci)Dave Lishansky, producer (https://twitter.com/DaveResonates)Show notes by Peter Chipman

This episode originally premiered on March 2, 2021. ---- The following is an interview with Curt Newton. Curt is the director of the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) platform, one of the best-known and respected open education platforms. In this interview, we discuss Curt's background and how he came to MIT, the OCW platform and the impact it's had on the world, and the future of open education. April 4, 2021, will mark MIT OCW's 20th Anniversary. To learn more about MIT OCW, be sure to visit the OCW website and follow the Twitter account @MITOCW.LINKS*MIT OpenCourseWare website*MIT OCW Twitter @MITOCW*Curt's website*Curt's Twitter @qwertnewtoPODCAST CONTACT:Website: edtechexamined.comEmail: hey@edtechexamined.comTwitter: @EdTechExaminedTEAM INFORMATIONErik Christiansen, Co-Founder & Co-HostWebsite: erikchristiansen.net Twitter: @egchristiansenBlog: tech-bytes.netKris Hans, Co-Founder & Co-HostWebsite: krishans.caTwitter: @KrisHansMarket Grade: marketgrade.comChristopher Hoang, Audio Producer & Sound EngineerWebsite: chrishoang.ca

When humans interact, they don't just pass information from one to the other; there's always some relational element, with the participants responding to each other's emotional cues. Professor Cynthia Breazeal, MIT's new Dean of Digital Learning, believes it's possible to design this element into human-computer interactions as well. She foresees a day when AI won't merely perform practical tasks for us, but also will provide us with companionship, emotional comfort, and even mental health support. But a future of closer human-AI collaborative relationships doesn't only require technological development—it also requires us to learn what AI is capable of and how to interact with it in a more informed way. To further this goal, Professor Breazeal leads the Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative at MIT, which runs an annual “Day of AI” program to promote better understanding of AI in the next generation of technology users and developers. In this episode, she describes those projects as well as her work developing the groundbreaking social robots Kismet and Jibo, prototypes of what she calls “warm tech”—AI-enabled devices designed to be engaging, expressive, and personal. Relevant Resources:Day of AIRAISE (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education)MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching insightsProfessor Breazeal's faculty pageProfessor Breazeal named Dean of Digital LearningProfessor Breazeal introduces Jibo (YouTube video)The Rise of Personal Robotics (TED talk by Professor Breazeal)Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseWare, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Nidhi Shastri and Aubrey Calloway, scriptwriters Show notes by Peter Chipman

In the previous episode we learned about a project undertaken as part of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) initiative at MIT's Schwartzman College of Computing. In this episode we hear about another SERC project, from Prof. Daniel Jackson and graduate teaching assistant Serena Booth, who have partnered to incorporate ethical considerations in Prof. Jackson and Prof. Arvind Satyanarayan's course 6.170 Software Studio. Jackson and Booth explain that software can fail its users in three ways: First, it can simply work badly, failing to meet the purpose it was intended for. Second, it may do what the user wants it to, while simultaneously accomplishing some insidious purpose that the user is unaware of. Third, as Prof. Jackson puts it, it may “contribute to a computational environment that has subtly pernicious effects” on the individual or on society—effects unintended not only by the user but also by the software designer. In their revised syllabus for 6.170, Jackson and Booth attempt to address these second and third types of failure by introducing ethical concerns early in the course and by sharing an ethics protocol to scaffold students' decision-making throughout the software design process. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal Share your teaching insightsSocial and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) resource on OpenCourseWare6.170 Software Studio ethics assignmentsSERC websiteProfessor Jackson's faculty pageSerena Booth's personal websiteMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going!CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

When computer science was in its infancy, programmers quickly realized that though computers are astonishingly powerful tools, the results they achieve are only as good as the data you feed into them. (This principle was quickly formalized as GIGO: “Garbage In, Garbage Out.”) What was true in the era of the UNIVAC has proved still to be true in the era of machine learning: among other well-publicized AI fiascos, chatbots that have interacted with bigots have learned to spew racist invective, while facial-recognition software trained solely on images of white people sometimes fails to recognize people of color as human. In this episode, we meet Prof. Catherine D'Ignazio of MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and Prof. Jacob Andreas and Harini Suresh of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In 2021, D'Ignazio, Andreas, and Suresh collaborated as part of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing initiative from the Schwarzman College of Computing in a project to teach computer science students in 6.864 Natural Language Processing to recognize how deep learning systems can replicate and magnify the biases inherent in the data sets that are used to train them. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching insightsSocial and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) resource on OpenCourseWareCase Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of ComputingSERC websiteProfessor D'Ignazio's faculty pageProfessor Andreas's faculty pageHarini Suresh's personal websiteDesmond Patton's paper on analysis of communications on TwitterMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseWare, donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Script writing assistance by Aubrey CalawayShow notes by Peter Chipman 

Most of the students in Professor Dennis McLaughlin's course 1.74 Land, Water, Food, and Climate come to it with established opinions on some very controversial topics: whether GMOs are safe, whether climate change is real (and really human-induced), whether organic agriculture is preferable to conventional agriculture, and whether it's better for land to be worked by individual farmers or by larger corporations. Dealing with topics like these in an introductory graduate-level class can be challenging. You have to train students to read the scientific literature so that they can evaluate the facts on both sides of an issue. But you also have to strike a balance between those concrete facts and the intangible social values that enter into debates on sensitive topics. In this episode, Professor McLaughlin describes his approach to those two challenges in teaching 1.74; he also explains how a diversity of backgrounds among the students in the class enriches class discussion, and he describes what he sees as the teacher's role: to adjust and when necessary reframe the terms of discussion, while still allowing students the freedom to explore the ramifications of their ideas.  Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching ideas and insights with Dennis McLaughlinProfessor McLaughlin's course on OCWProfessor McLaughlin's faculty pageOther environment courses on OCWThe MIT Climate PortalConnect with Curt Newton at LinkedIn or TwitterMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Script writing assistance by Nidhi ShastriShow notes by Peter Chipman 

Students in MIT's course 5.310 Laboratory Chemistry have a state-of-the art lab to work in, with energy-saving hibernating fume hoods and a new spectrometer that achieves mind-blowingly precise measurements—not parts per million or parts per billion, but parts per trillion! And the students do spend much of their time in that new lab. But Dr. John Dolhun, director of the Undergraduate Chemistry Teaching Labs at MIT, who taught 5.310 for many years, and Dr. Sarah Hewett, who currently teaches it, make sure that the course doesn't take place entirely behind closed doors. One of the lab activities involves collecting water samples from the Charles River and analyzing them for dissolved oxygen and contaminants such as phosphates. This activity, named the “Ellen Swallow Richards Lab” after an environmental chemist who was also the first female student at MIT, ensures that the coursework is grounded in real-world concerns. In this episode, Dr. Dolhun and Dr. Hewett discuss that lab and other topics, such as how to teach perseverance, why their course emphasizes ways of communicating science to an audience of nonscientists, and the importance of sharing educational resources. Relevant ResourcesMIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching ideas and insights with John Dolhun and Sarah HewettDr. Dolhun and Dr. Hewett's course on OCWChemLab Boot Camp video series on OCWEllen Swallow Richards biography at WikipediaMIT Spectrum article on the new undergraduate chemistry labsMIT News article on energy-saving measures in the undergraduate chemistry labsMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, please donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Script writing assistance by Aubrey CalawayShow notes by Peter Chipman

Sanjay Sarma is not only a professor of mechanical engineering; he's also Vice President for Open Learning at MIT, where he oversees innovative efforts to reimagine education, and he is coauthor (with Luke Yoquinto) of the recent book Grasp, which explores the nature of learning. In this episode, Professor Sarma discusses the differences between nominal learning, in which you memorize a fact or procedure but soon forget it, and real learning, in which you can effectively apply the skills and concepts you've previously mastered. When the format of education is consistent with what science tells us about how our brains store and retrieve information, Sarma says, real learning can be optimized. He argues that well-designed platforms for online learning are a vital resource for people worldwide who lack access to in-person education—like a glass of water to someone in a desert. But he also sees online learning as an indispensable tool for in-person education, allowing innovations that help to maximize the value of students' and instructors' time together, and he is optimistic about the potential value of online learning credentials as a pathway toward in-person degrees.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalSanjay Sarma & Luke Yoquinto's xTalk on GraspProfessor Sarma's course on OCWProfessor Sarma's faculty pageProfessor Sarma at MIT Open LearningProfessor Sarma's book GraspMicromasters programs from MITxMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with Us:If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay Current:Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCW:If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! Credits:Sarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer Dave Lishansky, producer Script writing assistance from Nidhi ShastriShow notes by Peter Chipman

Get app password and enter it in a file call pass set my_gpass= "MyAppPassword" Encrypt pass file with 'gpg -e pass' Shred pass file with 'shred -uv pass', which uses verbose mode shred - overwrite a file to hide its contents, and optionally delete it -u deallocate and remove file after overwriting -v, --verbose, show progress Use gpg encrypted key to open Gmail in .muttrc source "gpg -d ~/.mutt/pass.gpg |" Source colors file: Custom color scheme ## Custom - Shows a gray line on tagged emails color index yellow brightblack "~T ~N | ~T" Tagged emails Source hooks file: Redirect default save path for email sorting ## Newsletters - Technology ## save-hook '~f lists.linuxjournal.com' ='Linux' save-hook '~f arch-dev-public' =Newsletters save-hook '~f noreply@mmorpg.com' =Newsletters save-hook '~f ocw@mit.edu'|'~b Opencourseware' =Newsletters save-hook '~s Linux'|'~s Foundation' ='Newsletters' save-hook '~f weekly@raspberrypi.org' =Newsletters save-hook '~f hackspace@raspberrypi.org' =Newsletters save-hook '~f @pragmaticbookshelf.com' =Newsletters save-hook '~f comixology@e.comixology.com' =Newsletters save-hook '~f mrgroove@groovypost.com' =Newsletters save-hook '~f oreilly@post.oreilly.com' =Newsletters save-hook '~f mark ~s arduino' =Bookmarks/Arduino save-hook '~f smith@torproject.org' =Newsletters/TorProject save-hook '~f info@torproject.org' =Newsletters/TorProject save-hook '~f editor@eff.org' =Newsletters.EFFdotOrg save-hook '~f contact@diyodemag.com' =Newsletters/DIYODE-Magazine save-hook '~f weekly-update@allaboutcircuits.com' =Newsletters/Circuits ## Recipes ## save-hook '~f dora ~s Recipe | ~s Recipe | ~B recipe | ~B casserole | ~B bake | ~B "omaha steaks" ' ='dabrat1972/Recipes' Source aliases file: Frequently used contacts alias tags tags@hackerpublicradio.org alias Dave_Morriss Dave Morriss HTML email Install lynx Open URL's Install urlscan Capital 'U' open URL dialog Open pictures Install feh PDF reader Zathura https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=220572 Install zathura-pdf-mupdf and zathura-pdf-poppler Just needed zathura-pdf-mupdf, zathura-pdf-poppler was included with zathura. mailcap - metamail capabilities file DESCRIPTION The mailcap file is read by the metamail program to determine how to display non-text at the local site. image/*; feh %s; test=test -n "$DISPLAY"; text/html; lynx -nonumbers -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html application/pdf; zathura /dev/stdin More reading Regex question https://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-helpful-tips-for-mutt-e-mail-client-power-users Colors http://www.rdrop.com/docs/mutt/manual29.html Contact me: Email: ricemark20.nospam@nospam.gmail.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@archer72 Matrix: @archer72:matrix.org HPR Matrix room: https://app.element.io/#/room/#hpr:matrix.org Oggcastplanet Matrix room: https://app.element.io/#/room/!oIafedhXUbEidMzeTt:libera.chat Links Example files: colors gmail mailcap muttrc

Nancy Kanwisher, founding member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and professor in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, describes the effort to understand the mind as “the grandest scientific quest of all time,” partly because it seeks to answer fundamental questions that all people ponder from time to time: What is knowledge? How does memory work? How do we form our perceptions of the world? In this episode, Prof. Kanwisher gives a nutshell history of her field and describes how scientists use imaging techniques to study the brain structures involved in different cognitive skills. She also reflects on the usefulness of personal anecdotes as a teaching technique in courses like her 9.13 The Human Brain. Kanwisher believes scientists have a moral obligation to share the results of their research with the world—which may explain why she has published her course materials for 9.13 on OpenCourseWare—but she doesn't see that sharing as an onerous responsibility. “The stuff I do is easily shareable with people,” she says, “but it's also fun. It's really fun to get an idea across and see somebody resonate to it.”Relevant ResourcesMIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching ideas and insights with Nancy KanwisherProfessor Kanwisher's course on OCW (9.13 The Human Brain)Professor Kanwisher at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchProfessor Kanwisher's series of short videos on brain scienceMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer (https://twitter.com/learning_sarah)Brett Paci, producer  (https://twitter.com/Brett_Paci)Dave Lishansky, producer (https://twitter.com/DaveResonates)Script writing assistance from Nidhi ShastriShow notes by Peter Chipman

Contemporary Movements for Justice is an MIT course in which scholars and activists speak about pursuing justice for European colonialism in Africa and its contemporary legacies. Do you have ideas that could help shape these discussions? If so, please participate in this new OCW opportunity. Watch course lectures online at the same time as MIT students. No registration required, and it's completely free. Then share your ideas by following the link below. Professor Edoh will incorporate your questions and comments into the offline discussions that happen in class.  After each class discussion she'll pin a summary comment on each video on YouTube so you can see how your contributions informed the conversation. The next course module is on the efforts of a group of Afro-descended Belgian activists to hold accountable a commission that was established to examine Belgium's colonial past in Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda. Tune in to the OCW YouTube channel throughout November 2021 to watch videos from experts speaking about transitional and reparative justice in this context. You can find a complete schedule of the lectures for the course below. Amah Edoh is the Homer A. Burnell Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at MIT. Last year she was the winner of the Everett Moore Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. She has previously appeared on the Chalk Radio podcast (and been profiled in Open Matters) discussing her course 21G.026 Global Africa: Creative Cultures. In addition to that course, OCW also has published the materials from Professor Edoh's 21G.025 Africa and the Politics of Knowledge. Relevant Resources:Contribute Your Ideas to Contemporary Movements for JusticeContemporary Movements for Justice Video PlaylistMIT OpenCourseWareProfessor Edoh's Faculty PageMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Lecture Schedule:OctoberWhat do We Mean by Reparations?Openings for Seeking Justice for Colonial Violence in Algeria NovemberRelevance of a Transitional Justice Framework to Address Belgium's Colonial Past (coming soon)Accessing Archives to Make Claims (coming soon) Connect with Us:If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us at 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay Current:Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCW:If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! Credits:Sarah Hansen, host and producerBrett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

The classic New England town meeting, with voters gathered in a large hall to decide issues directly, is often cited as the purest form of American democracy. But historically, those town meetings gave a voice only to certain classes of people. In this episode we meet Ceasar McDowell, Professor of the Practice of Community Development at MIT and newly appointed associate director of MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication. Prof. McDowell has devoted his career to nurturing a more vibrant, inclusive democracy, one adapted to the complex reality of a modern, largely urbanized America. In his course 11.312 Engaging Community (coming soon to OpenCourseWare), he helps his students use the tools of civic design to craft forms of community engagement and decision-making that will bring everyone into the conversation, even those on the margins of our society. In keeping with his commitment to collaborative effort, Prof. McDowell encourages his students to propose specific real-life problems they’re interested in, and to decide collectively which ones to address in the class. “We have to learn to talk to each other,” he says. “Yes, this is hard work, and yes, you can do it.” Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProfessor McDowell’s faculty pageMIT's Center for Constructive CommunicationWe Who Engage (blog)We Who Engage (podcast episodes)We Who Engage (Instagram)America’s Path ForwardCivic Design FrameworkMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with Us:If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us at 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay Current:Subscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCW:If you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going!Credits:Sarah Hansen, host and producerBrett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

In our previous episode we met Professor Dava Newman, cofounder of the nonprofit group EarthDNA. Today’s guest is Brandon Leshchinskiy, a graduate student in Technology and Policy at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, who has helped Prof. Newman create the EarthDNA Ambassadors program, training young people in communication, negotiation, and storytelling to build support for individual and collective action on climate change. Leshchinskiy has crafted an engaging interactive presentation, called Climate 101, that creatively employs materials from various sources to examine climate change from scientific, economic, and civic perspectives. By teaching young people to deliver this presentation effectively, he is developing a cohort of trained climate educators who can in turn teach their peers to reach out to friends and family on one of humanity’s most pressing issues. In this episode, Leshchinskiy discusses why young people make effective climate ambassadors, how climate presentations can be made more powerful by customizing them with specific details that are relevant to people’s own communities, what we can learn from society’s response to the challenges of Covid-19, and how to avoid developing “doom fatigue” from exposure to negative news stories.Relevant ResourcesMIT OpenCourseWareOCW’s 20th anniversary celebration registration pageThe OCW Educator PortalEarthDNA on the WebEarthDNA’s Climate 101 on OCWEarthDNA Ambassadors programWangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize winner)“I will be a hummingbird” (YouTube video)Professor Dava Newman at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and SocietyRand Wentworth at Harvard’s Center for the EnvironmentMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producerBrett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman 

Professor Dava Newman is an aerospace engineer whose career has largely focused on developing improved space suits for eventual interplanetary travel. But in recent years she has turned her sights back toward Earth, using the vast amounts of data collected by satellites in near space to inform and motivate the public for the fight against catastrophic climate change. In this episode, Prof. Newman fields listener-submitted questions about climate change and also talks more specifically about EarthDNA, a nonprofit startup she co-founded to serve as a platform for climate advocacy and action. EarthDNA aims to curate petabytes of data and presents it in eye-catching visualizations structured around the four major subsystems of our home planet—oceans, land, air, and near space. But it won’t just present the facts; it also seeks to steer users toward actions and activities that will make a difference. One of the chief goals for the platform is to provide personalized information that is relevant to the user’s specific interests and geographic location because, as Prof. Newman explains, we all care most about what’s happening in our own backyards or in the places that are important to us.     Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalEarthDNA on the WebProfessor Newman’s climate resources on OCWProfessor Newman’s aerospace engineering course on OCWProfessor Newman at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and SocietyMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you!Call us at 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producerBrett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

The following is an interview with Curt Newton. Curt is the director of the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) platform, one of the best-known and respected open education platforms. In this interview, we discuss Curt's background and how he came to MIT, the OCW platform and the impact it's had on the world, and the future of open education. April 4, 2021, will mark MIT OCW's 20th Anniversary. To learn more about MIT OCW, be sure to visit the OCW website and follow the Twitter account @MITOCW.LINKS*MIT OpenCourseWare website*MIT OCW Twitter @MITOCW*Curt's website*Curt's Twitter @qwertnewtoPODCAST CONTACT:Website: edtechexamined.comEmail: hey@edtechexamined.comTwitter: @EdTechExaminedTEAM INFORMATIONErik Christiansen, Co-Founder & Co-HostWebsite: erikchristiansen.net Twitter: @egchristiansenBlog: tech-bytes.netKris Hans, Co-Founder & Co-HostWebsite: krishans.caTwitter: @KrisHansMarket Grade: marketgrade.comChristopher Hoang, Audio Producer & Sound EngineerWebsite: chrishoang.ca

Garnette Cadogan is an acclaimed essayist who teaches in MIT’s Urban Studies and Planning program. As befits a teacher who is also a professional creative writer, he conceives of the academic syllabus as a matrix of interconnected and recurring themes and leitmotifs, not as a schematic outline of self-contained units. In this episode, he describes how he designed his latest class, 11.S947 The Fire This Time: Race and Racism in American Cities, to draw on a wide range of cultural documents—not only written texts but also standup comedy, song, poetry, and film—to de-simplify students’ understanding of racial relations. Too often, he says, the struggle for social justice is presented in terms of a teleological progression toward freedom and inclusion, and too often victimization is presented as if it were the only experience of those on the receiving end of racism’s injustices. Oppression dehumanizes everyone, oppressor and oppressed alike, Cadogan says, but it isn’t the sum total of anyone’s being. He hopes this class will help students encounter the experiences of others in their full human complexity of joy, hope, pessimism, struggle, and imagination.Relevant ResourcesMIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalGarnette Cadogan’s course 1.S947 The Fire This Time: Race and Racism in American Cities -- coming soon!Garnette Cadogan’s course 11.S948 Seeing the City Afresh on OCW Garnette Cadogan’s essay “Walking While Black”Garnette Cadogan’s faculty pageWatch MIT’s 47th Annual MLK Jr Celebration to hear more voices on the role of joy in the struggle against systemic racism Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep these programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producerBrett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Show notes by Peter Chipman

Over the years, Sarah Hansen has interviewed the creator of the “Women of NASA” minifigure series as well as a professor of astronautics and former deputy administrator of NASA. Now, for the first time, she interviews an actual astronaut, Jeff Hoffman, who teaches aerospace engineering and systems engineering at MIT. In this episode, Prof. Hoffman describes his experiences in space and how one’s understanding of the world is changed by seeing it from the outside, as a finite sphere, with our seemingly boundless sky revealed as just a thin layer of breathable atmosphere. So far this broadening of physical perspective has been limited to a select few, but Prof. Hoffman tries to achieve an analogous broadening in his students’ mental perspective by introducing them to the Conceive Design Implement Operate (CDIO) framework, an approach to engineering education that uses student-designed-and-built projects to develop teamwork and professionalism and to help students envision the big picture of the systems being designed: what they are intended to be and how they will be used in the real world by actual people, whether on the ground or in the vacuum of space.Relevant ResourcesMIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProfessor Hoffman’s systems engineering course on OCWProfessor Hoffman’s aerospace engineering course on MIT’s Open Learning LibraryProfessor Hoffman’s full video interview with Sarah HansenProfessor Hoffman’s faculty pageCDIO approach to engineering educationMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producerBrett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producerShow notes by Peter Chipman

M.I.T. is credited with the first large scale Open Education Resource (OER) project with the launch of their Open Courseware initiative in 2002. Since then, OER's have become something of a success story in education with OER projects and educators still pushing the concept forward and into mainstream adoption. This chapter explores some of the early days of OER and how those early projects & pioneers influenced a global movement that continues to build and evolve today.

In this episode, I discuss different technologies used to deliver a thesis seminar scheduled for the spring semester of 2021. In the Classroom @ https://benjaminlstewart.org  Attribution: Intro/Outro music: Benjamin Tissot (also known as Bensound) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-l-stewart/message

First-year students who already plan to major in chemistry don’t require any special bells or whistles to motivate them to study the subject. But introductory chemistry is a required subject for all students at MIT, regardless of their intended major, and materials scientist Jeffrey Grossman has found that for many students in his course 3.091 Introduction to Solid State Chemistry, the subject becomes much more accessible if he takes conscious steps to make it real for them. He does this both inside and outside the classroom. First, he makes sure that part of each lecture he delivers explores the connection between the topic of the lecture and his students’ actual experience. Second, he gives students the chance to play around with real-world materials so they can learn the principles of chemistry firsthand. As Professor Grossman explains in this episode, it was by playing around with materials that the very first chemists began to learn about matter and its properties, and this kind of basic experimentation has an inherently multisensory quality that deepens and enriches students’ understanding of the concepts they learn.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWare The OCW Educator Portal Professor Grossman’s course on OCW - coming soon!Professor Grossman’s faculty pageMIT’s General Institute Requirements (GIRs)“Plenty of Room at the Bottom” (PDF) (Richard Feynman’s lecture on atomic-scale engineering)Music in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us @ 617 475-0534On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going!

For millions of years after the Big Bang, nearly all the matter in the universe was in the form of hydrogen and helium; other elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen only formed later, in nuclear reactions inside stars. To learn what the universe looked like back then, MIT astrophysicist Anna Frebel studies the oldest stars we can find—13 billion years old, to be precise—scanning them for traces of elements that will give a clue to their history. As Professor Frebel explains to Sarah Hansen in this episode, curiosity about the origins of the universe we live in is a profoundly human trait, just like curiosity about one’s own family history. To help communicate to laypeople the wonder and amazement that motivates astronomers like herself, Prof. Frebel has written a book and recorded a companion series of videos, both of which are intentionally designed to be as user-friendly as possible. It doesn’t matter, she says, if viewers and readers don’t grasp all the details; her hope is that they will develop the desire to understand more, and that that desire will spark further learning.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal"Cosmic Origin of the Chemical Elements" on OCWProfessor Frebel’s book Searching for the Oldest StarsProfessor Frebel’s faculty pageMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! Call us @ 617 475-0534On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseware, donate to help keep those programs going! 

Juan & Terence give their advice on how to learn physics on your own.

Many instructors in recent years have turned to open educational resources (OER) so that their students don’t have to pay for an expensive textbook. And that is indeed one of the foremost benefits of OER. But Professor Elizabeth Siler, who teaches at Worcester State University, has found that using OER offers advantages to instructors too: doing so allows you to teach the material you think your students need to learn, and to teach that material the way you think your students need to learn it, rather than being tied to a prepackaged sequence of material. Professor Siler enjoys being able to select and adapt material for her courses from publicly-available sources. One source that she’s used successfully in teaching negotiation at WSU is the OpenCourseWare version of a course originally taught at MIT by Professor Mary Rowe. In this episode, we talk with both Professor Siler and Professor Rowe about why instructors might decide to share, reuse, and remix course materials, and how that decision plays out in teaching actual courses like their own courses in negotiation.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal Mary Rowe’s MIT faculty pageElizabeth Siler’s Worcester State University faculty page15.667 Negotiation and Conflict Management on OCWDealing with an Aggressive Competitive Negotiator case study [PDF]Guidelines for writing a Perceived Injurious Experience letter [PDF]Other negotiation courses on OCWMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

Welcome! Craig discusses the uptick in Ransomware and Phishing. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Read More: 7 reasons to pay for antivirus software and skip the free versions YouTube TV jumps 30% in price effective immediately Police roll up crime networks in Europe after infiltrating popular encrypted chat app New Mac ransomware is even more sinister than it appears Ransomware is now your biggest online security nightmare. And it's about to get worse Apple's Silicon Macs promise screaming performance TikTok and 32 other iOS apps still snoop your sensitive clipboard data An embattled group of leakers picks up the WikiLeaks mantle --- Automated Machine-Generated Transcript: 00:00:00] Hey, did you think WannaCry was the end, the final blow of ransomware. A couple of years back turns out it is back with a vengeance and I mean, vengeance. You are listening to Craig Peterson. Of course, you'll find me online @craigpeterson.com. You'll find my podcasts. There you'll be able to subscribe to my email list. You'll be able to see some of the training stuff that I'm starting to do right now. You'll get announcements about Lives when I'm doing training. So you can decide what makes sense for you in your move forward. Whether you're a career security person or maybe security is just yet another hat that you have to wear, right? If you're a business owner, it's one of a hundred hats you have to wear. Well, we try and have it all there for you. So, there's a good path to follow. I had a really interesting discussion this last week [00:01:00] because of a friend of mine. In fact, she's in one of my mastermind groups, she was saying that one of her best friends has been trying to learn about security and couldn't find any real courses on it. And the OpenCourseWare stuff is from 2014, which is in, you know, by today's standards very outdated and not of a whole lot of use because as I mentioned things like antivirus totally useless in this day and age. Okay. So, there are so many things that we have to worry about and what I'm going to be doing more training on this stuff, but there's only one way to find out that is to be on my list. So, let's get back into this. Cause this is just fascinating about ransomware. It was kind of a menace mainly for consumers. Back in the day, I had a couple of my clients that were hit with WannaCry. It never went anywhere inside their networks. It never encrypted – [00:02:00] anything, at least the divisions I was covering. The other divisions all got nailed. All got nailed very, very badly by the WannaCry ransomware. And they, I have one client who is a worldwide, a fortune 10 or 50 anyways, very, very big company. And they refuse to follow my advice corporate-wide. They did follow that my advice and one of their divisions and that division didn't get nailed with ransomware. So, I'm pretty proud of that right now. All of the rest of them had to shut down all operations for a couple of weeks. Now with this whole COVID-19 shutdown, you know what that can do to a company. Very, very difficult. In fact, to this day, the division that we've been protecting is the only profitable division in the entire corporation, just absolutely amazing. So, the bad guys now [00:03:00] realize they didn't have to steal data to make money. Like they used to do. All they had to do was make it almost impossible to access encrypting it. Unless we pay up. So there are some new twists now. Not only are they not just going after consumers, but they're also going after businesses, including large businesses. Like for instance, the client I just mentioned, which is a huge company, many municipalities you probably heard about Atlanta. Got nailed with it. Like three times. They, everything went down, they lost everything. They couldn't collect taxes, even water payments, nothing. Oh, you know, they should have hired me. Right. They hire these huge corporations that have no idea what they're doing. Right. They send out these kids that just graduated, paying them almost nothing with sleeping bags underneath the desks. That's a good way to tell, by the way, if you hired a good company, do they have sleeping bags under their desk? We're seeing [00:04:00] now that they are also getting on to our computers. And usually, within about two weeks, they start what's called a lateral spread. So, they start to go from the one computer that they've compromised to other computers within the organization. So, they'll get on to the, you know, the CFO's computer, which we just found in one of our clients, a couple of weeks ago, that DOD contractor again, where they were using Malwarebytes, which is, as I said, pretty good. They had some other antivirus software, but that computer, the CFO's computer ended up getting compromised and it had a back door and active back the back door on the computer. That's a huge deal, especially for the CFO, especially for a military subcontractor, just amazing the data that they [00:05:00] were able to steal off of that computer. They only found out because their Malwarebytes contract had expired. They said, Hey, you've been hounded us in us to put this AMP on it. So, let's put AMP on it. This whole anti-malware platform and a stack of software and you know, what the heck. It’s a lot more expensive, but let's try it out. So, we tried it out and bam right away. On the first day, we found that as well as a number of other problems on their network. So, they'll spread laterally as they did in this organization here. This was just like a week or two ago. And that lateral spread is access to more data and then they will pull data off of the computers. So, there's another reason to monitor all of the outbound flow of data, which we do automatically for all of our mid-tier and above customers, where we're watching all of the outflows, right? The exfiltration of [00:06:00] data, where's it going? What's it doing? Is this normal? Is this normal for this time of day? Is this normal for this machine? Is this normal for this type of data? We do that all automatically. If we notice something. Oh, we have another client that we saw. That there was some data exfiltration going on to Mexico, which was not normal. Was not something expected? So, the systems automatically shut it down, set off our pagers. We had a look and indeed somebody had gotten into their network through a portion of the network. We did not control. So, we were able to catch that. Thank goodness. They were able to get a few gigabytes of data out versus the entire file server. Right. Very, very big deal. So that's one way that the bad guys are doing it right now. They take your data and then they try and ransom it to you now. Yeah, they may encrypt all of your data. And part of the reason they do that is just to get you on your [00:07:00] toes. So, you realize, Oh my gosh, somebody has been in here. But the other reason they do that is so that they can come back to you and say, Hey, we have all of your customer's information. We have all of your intellectual property. If you don't pay us, we are going to post this up on the internet. Usually, they'll post it on the dark web. So the bad guys have full access to it. Many times they will sell it and make a few extra bucks off of it. So, you know, you can pay them or the other bad guys can pay them. So we get, we've got to be careful about all of this. There are a lot of ransomware attacks going on right now. These groups are smart and sophisticated about half of the companies pay the ransoms. So these bad guys are frankly, very well funded. They are skilled and you've got to have the right type of stuff. You've got to have the firepower firewalls. [00:08:00] You've got to have the stuff that's constantly monitoring them. So you're looking for in intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems, which the Cisco firepower stuff provides, but you have to be able to monitor it. You have to have special, not just rules in place, but rules to watch the logs and everything. Okay. they also, by the way, the bad guys now are searching out encrypting any backups that organizations are leaving connected to the network. So think about that hard drive, you have connected to your computer that has all of this data on it. And the bad guys will see that backup data and encrypted as well. So if you, if your only backup is something attached to your computer, It ain't going to help much in the event of ransomware. In fact, it's not going to help at all. So make sure at the very least you disconnect it when you're not backing up and that you back up every day or [00:09:00] follow the training that I gave on backups, do a three, two, one backup, and that is going to keep you safe. Okay. by the way, the police departments, the FBI, et cetera. They are not going to do much follow up on any of this type of stuff. Any of this ransomware, if it happens to you. And I've had so many listeners contact me M E @craigpeterson.com asking what do they do and how do they report it to the police and how do they get it escalated? Cause the police don't seem to be doing anything. Okay. So be, be very careful out there, frankly. There's also some new ransomware that's out there for Macintoshes. Now you have to be a complete idiot for this ransomware to take, hold on your Mac, because it is going to pop up on your Mac multiple times asking you, Hey, do you really want to install this? [00:10:00] This is from an unidentified developer. So, again, be careful when you are downloading software. It's, you know, my, one of my mantras, if you are grabbing software from an unknown source online, Be extra, extra careful, even if it is properly signed with an Apple ID, all that's going to happen is it gives Apple the opportunity to trace back where it came from, who might've been the developer behind it. So this is real ransomware. It's called theft quest. It's got all kinds of menacing features, but it's very unlikely to infect your Mac anytime soon unless you're in the habit of downloading pirated embedded software. Cause what they're doing is they are packing this in with software on some of these BitTorrent sites. So, so, yeah, it's a little bit of a problem, right? [00:11:00] So yeah, first of all, you're getting there from a torrent site, which is probably questionable. Now there are legitimate torrent sites. I use them as well for downloading things like versions of, of, Linux, et cetera, et cetera. So there are legitimate sites out there, but there are many that are illegitimate. So be careful. That's how you get nailed on a Mac. So we are going to be disappearing from most of these stations. And I appreciate you being with me today. If you miss part of today's show, or you'd like to hear the rest of it, just spend a minute here and go to Craig peterson.com/itunes or go to your favorite podcast program and right there do a search for Craig Peterson, but you know what? It's even easier if you use iHeart or tune-in or iTunes, just go to Craig peterson.com/. For instance, slash  Iheart, slash tune-in. It'll take you right to my [00:12:00] podcast and please consider subscribing because that really helps the numbers, which helps me to know that there are people listening. And if you are listening, drop me a note. Let me know what you like about the show and some of the changes that have been underway and some of the changes that are coming up. Drop me a note as well. Craig peterson.com. Everybody, take care. And stick around or we'll talk next week. Bye-bye. --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Professor Jonathan Gruber wants to train students to think like economists. Economics uses elegant mathematical models to explain how people make decisions and allocate their resources—but all too often those models are taught in ways that remain disconnected from students’ own experience. In this episode, Professor Gruber shares his thoughts on bridging that gap in his course 14.01 Introductory Microeconomics. He says he tries to anchor the course with real-world examples; as he explains, “You only really understand something when you go out in the real world and apply it.” And those examples, he says, have to be relatable. So rather than discussing companies none of his students have heard of or commodities nobody cares about, he illustrates fundamental economic concepts with examples like Kim Kardashian’s exercise corset, Uber’s policy of surge pricing, and LeBron James’s decision not to attend college. By engaging students with accessible examples of economic principles in action, Professor Gruber helps them develop economic intuition—a sense of how the mathematical models apply in the real, seemingly chaotic world. If you’ve always thought economics was boring, listen in on this podcast. It may change your mind!Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProfessor Gruber’s Scholar course on OCWProfessor Gruber’s microeconomics course on EdXProfessor Gruber’s faculty pageMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

“We all hold dear certain attitudes about language,” Professor Michel DeGraff says in this episode centered on his course 24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities. Those attitudes can be positive for ourselves and for others, DeGraff says, but they can also have negative effects. His goal is to make linguistics accessible to a broader audience, to connect language to issues of culture and identity, and to show how language prejudices are rooted in hierarchies of power. Specifically, he seeks to increase public awareness that the creoles of the Caribbean, like his native Haitian Creole (or Kreyòl), are fully developed languages worthy of as much respect as higher-prestige languages like French or English. To pursue this goal, he promotes dual-language education for Haitian-American students, and he himself speaks Kreyòl in as many public forums as possible—including in the videos on the OpenCourseWare site for his course, and at various points in this podcast itself! At the same time, as he explains, he encourages his students to examine their own backgrounds to see how their attitudes about the languages they speak have been shaped by explicit or implicit attitudes about culture and identity.Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal Professor DeGraff’s course on OCWProfessor DeGraff’s faculty pageThe MIT-Haiti Initiative English / Haitian Creole dual-language kindergarten in BostonMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

Phil’s guest on this episode of the IT Career Energizer podcast is Tobias Macey. He currently manages and leads the Technical Operations Team at MIT Open Learning where he designs and builds cloud infrastructure to power online access to education for the global MIT community. He also owns and operates Boundless Notions where he offers design, review, and implementation advice on data infrastructure and cloud automation.  And he’s the host of the weekly Python Podcast and the Data Engineering Podcast. In this episode, Phil and Tobias Macey discuss some of the assets MIT offers free of charge to the global community, including Open Courseware and the Open edXplatform. They talk about how knowing the fundamentals makes it easier to learn the latest tech. Tobias also talks about the advancements in the ability to gain insights in real-time from data and how data engineering will be the biggest driver for our global economy.   KEY TAKEAWAYS: (5.06) TOP CAREER TIP Make sure that you are always learning. But, also have a deep understanding of the fundamentals. Those are the things that never change and will make learning new techologies far easier. They are the foundations on which most new tech is built.   (7.44) WORST CAREER MOMENT Practically everyone that has ever worked in operations will have at one stage taken down the production system. Tobias shares an example of when he did exactly that and what the fallout from that was. As well as how he fixed it.   That particular mistake taught him to put in place strong guardrails. It also taught him not to panic when things go wrong. Worrying gets you nowhere.   (10.15) CAREER HIGHLIGHT Having the opportunity to run his podcasts and ask the industry's innovators interesting questions. In the podcast, Tobias shares the story of how he got started and how you can potentially do something similar.   (13.16) THE FUTURE OF CAREERS IN I.T As our economy and the world around us becomes increasingly digitized, the number of opportunities for everyone increases. Tobias is excited by the fact that it is now far easier for people to self-actualize and get involved in changing things.   Tobias also talks about the advancements in our ability to gain insights from data and do so in real-time. As well as how data engineering is set to drastically change the way the world works.   (16.04) THE REVEAL What first attracted you to a career in I.T.? – Initially Tobias wanted to be a physicist, but the opportunities were limited, so he tried IT instead. What’s the best career advice you received? – Put yourself out there, speak to people, and build a network. What’s the worst career advice you received? – What would you do if you started your career now? – Tobias would start by using free courses to learn the basics, then dive in and push himself to build something. What are your current career objectives? – Building out a viable data platform that provides clean data for analysis. As well as keeping his podcast going. What’s your number one non-technical skill? – Being good at self-directed learning and knowing what questions to ask and how to ask them. How do you keep your own career energized? – Keeping an eye on other areas of the industry and running his podcast. What do you do away from technology? – Tobias enjoys spending time with his family. Right now, he is getting his kids into board games and dungeons and dragons.   (22.24) FINAL CAREER TIP Stay curious. Treat challenges as if they are puzzles, especially the more difficult ones. There is always an answer, you just need to keep at it to find the answers and solve the puzzle.   BEST MOMENTS (4.50) – Tobias - “Always be polite to people. You never know when they might be able to help you out, in the future.” (5.06) – Tobias - “Make sure that you are constantly learning and know the fundamentals, the things that never change.” (0.00) – Tobias - “When things go wrong, don´t panic. Accept the fact that a mistake was made and do what is necessary to resolve it.” (11.43) – Tobias - “If there is something that you want, don´t wait for someone else to do it. Step up and be the one to provide it.” (20.31) – Tobias - “Learn to ask open-ended questions, you will be surprised by how much more you will learn by doing so.”   ABOUT THE HOST – PHIL BURGESS Phil Burgess is an independent IT consultant who has spent the last 20 years helping organizations to design, develop, and implement software solutions.  Phil has always had an interest in helping others to develop and advance their careers.  And in 2017 Phil started the I.T. Career Energizer podcast to try to help as many people as possible to learn from the career advice and experiences of those that have been, and still are, on that same career journey.   CONTACT THE HOST– PHIL BURGESS Phil can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/philtechcareer LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/philburgess Facebook: https://facebook.com/philtechcareer Instagram: https://instagram.com/philtechcareer Website: https://itcareerenergizer.com/contact   Phil is also reachable by email at phil@itcareerenergizer.com and via the podcast’s website, https://itcareerenergizer.com Join the I.T. Career Energizer Community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ITCareerEnergizer   ABOUT THE GUEST – TOBIAS MACEY Tobias Macey currently manages and leads the Technical Operations Team at MIT Open Learning where he designs and builds cloud infrastructure to power online access to education for the global MIT community.   He also owns and operates Boundless Notions where he offers design, review, and implementation advice on data infrastructure and cloud automation.  And he’s the host of the weekly Python Podcast.   CONTACT THE GUEST – TOBIAS MACEY Tobias Macey can be contacted through the following Social Media platforms:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/TobiasMacey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmacey/ Website: https://www.boundlessnotions.com        

This episode explores a new kind of independent study. MIT has traditionally encouraged its Sloan MBA fellows to engage in international projects with partners around the globe. Our guest, Dr. Anjali Sastry, has led over 100 groups of MBA fellows in these projects. But she recently changed the structure of the class so that instead of signing on to projects developed by instructors, students are now able to develop their own projects based on their own interests. All the new projects in this course called 15.960 New Executive Thinking Social-Impact Projects involve applying technology in new ways to find solutions to common problems worldwide. In one project, for example, a student employed data analytics to improve financing prospects for small-scale farmers in Brazil and elsewhere. Sastry finds that mentoring a variety of students with disparate interests presents a real challenge, because it often involves working in areas beyond her own area of expertise. And keeping track of the various projects required her to develop a very structured process for students to use in reporting their progress. It’s worth the extra effort, though it isn’t easy, says Sastry. “Teaching this way is incredibly rewarding, and also really scary.”Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal Dr. Sastry’s Social-Impact course on OCWOther courses by Dr. Sastry on OCWDr. Sastry's MITx course on Business and Impact Planning for Social EnterprisesDr. Sastry’s faculty pageSloan Fellows MBA ProgramMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

Mathematics Professor Gilbert Strang is one of MIT’s most revered instructors; his courses, especially the perennially popular linear algebra course 18.06, have received millions of visits on OpenCourseWare, and his lecture videos have won him a devoted following on YouTube as well. (A sample YouTube comment on one of his lectures: “This is not lecture, this is art.”) A few years ago, Professor Strang began teaching a new course (18.065) focusing on the application of mathematical matrices to deep learning and AI. This new course is very unlike a typical undergraduate math course. For one thing, there’s no final exam—in fact, there are no exams at all! Instead, Professor Strang asks each student to spend the semester developing a project that applies the techniques they’re studying to some topic or problem they personally find interesting. In this episode, we hear from Professor Strang about his efforts to humanize math teaching, the value of thinking through problems in real time during lectures—even if it means getting stuck and having to backtrack!—and the importance of staying continually conscious of your students.    Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator Portal 18.065 on OCW18.06 on OCW18.06 Scholar on OCWProfessor Strang’s faculty pageProfile of Professor StrangMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

It’s a safe bet that Professor Michael Short’s 22.01 Introduction to Nuclear Engineering and Ionizing Radiation is the only course at MIT where students are encouraged to bring their toenail clippings to class. In this episode, Professor Short discusses one of the core principles of his teaching philosophy: the importance of making abstract concepts tangible by means of hands-on activities. Want to know how much gold or arsenic is in your body? Bombard the aforementioned toenail clippings with neutrons in a reactor and see what gamma rays they give off! Want to know whether the stone in your ring is a genuine diamond or just a cubic zirconia? Put it under the electron microscope! Professor Short also emphasizes the value of opening “knowledge gaps”—awakening his students’ curiosity by focusing on interesting questions they don’t yet know the answer to. Later, Professor Short describes how he designed the course with a built-in mechanism for collecting real-time feedback so that he can respond immediately to students’ concerns. As a bonus, near the end of the podcast, Professor Short answers various nuclear science questions posed by actual OpenCourseWare users. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalProfessor Short’s Nuclear Engineering and Ionizing Radiation course on OCWProfessor Short’s Do-It-Yourself Geiger Counters on OCWProfessor Short’s faculty pageBlog post on Professor Short’s work in MongoliaMusic in this episode by Blue Dot SessionsConnect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you! On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn InstagramStay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter.

In each episode of this new podcast, we meet the instructors behind one of MIT’s most interesting courses, from nuclear physics to film appreciation to piloting small aircraft. The instructors open up to us about the passions that drive their cutting-edge research and innovative teaching, sharing stories that are candid, funny, serious, personal⁠, and full of insights. Listening in on these conversations is like being right here with us in person under the MIT dome, talking with your favorite professors.  About the HostDr. Sarah Hansen connects educators around the world to openly licensed MIT teaching materials and approaches through the MIT OpenCourseWare Educator project. Before she began working at MIT, she was a faculty member in the Education Department at St. Catherine University. She was an elementary school teacher before teaching teachers. Sarah holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Minnesota, where her scholarship focused on equity issues in education. Her hobbies include doing art projects with her preschool-aged daughter, spending time with her family in India, and experiencing gorgeous public architecture.  Relevant ResourcesMIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalQ & A with Sarah Hansen Connect with UsIf you enjoyed this conversation, have a suggestion for a new episode, or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you!On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. 

Gilbert Strang is a professor of mathematics at MIT and perhaps one of the most famous and impactful teachers of math in the world. His MIT OpenCourseWare lectures on linear algebra have been viewed millions of times. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or support it on Patreon. This episode

Cecilia d'Oliveira: MIT's OpenCourseWare | Steve Hargadon | Sep 27 2011 by Steve Hargadon

En esta ocasión nuestro invitado es Julen Iturbe-Ormaetxe. Julen compagina su trabajo como “consultor artesano” con su actividad como docente e investigador en la Universidad de Mondragón, y es un experto en las denominadas “organizaciones abiertas”. De este tema es sobre lo que gira nuestra conversación. Entre otras cosas, charlamos sobre el origen de este enfoque empresarial y de como la evolución de las empresas hacia modelos más abiertos, lejos de ser una opción, es un imperativo en un entorno en continuo cambio donde la información ya no es un bien escaso. Julen nos explica también varios casos de organizaciones abiertas y como una estrategia de apertura puede servir a distintos fines, desde responder al movimiento de un competidor que ya ha decidido "abrirse", como ha sucedido con varias universidades a raíz de la iniciativa Open Courseware del MIT, a favorecer el crecimiento de un mercado incipiente, como busca Tesla a través de la liberación de sus patentes, o a monetizar el valor creado por una comunidad que, como tal, ya ha nacido abierta, como es el caso de Wikiloc. Finalmente, Julen nos aporta algunas perspectivas inspiradoras acerca de lo que puede hacer una empresa que quiere abrirse para superar los miedos y resistencias que se encontrará en el camino y conseguir alcanzar esa meta.

Hoy el tema es hablar de los MOOCs, lo que son, de que tratan y las maneras que tenemos de ampliar nuestro negocio de formación online  a través de estas plataformas. Comencemos pensando en que muchas veces podemos plantear nuestros proyectos formación digital de muchas maneras. Tal vez nos guste crear contenidos, tutorizar alumnos, buscar soluciones de aprendizaje o hacer consultoría de formación para empresas que quieran mejorar los conocimientos y habilidades de sus empleados. Pensar que en Internet hay muchas herramientas y plataformas que podemos utilizar para darnos a conocer o impartir clases a nuestros alumnos virtuales. Así que pensamos que sería buena idea hablaros, no sólo de la existencia de estas plataformas, si no de como podemos aprovecharlas para ampliar nuestras opciones de negocio en Internet. Vamos a ver, entonces, diferentes posibilidades de monetizar y crear un negocio basándonos en ideas sobre este modelo de formación. ¿Qué son los MOOCs? Son las siglas de “Massive Open Online Course”, en español: Curso On-line Masivo en Abierto. Este modelo de formación virtual se basa en ofrecer a un número ilimitado de alumnos el acceso a un formación sin costes de entrada. Aunque ya veremos donde se puede monetizar todo esto. La primera vez que se habló de este término anglosajón fue en 2008 y desde entonces cientos de universidades han ofrecido cursos bajo esta filosofía. Aunque sería el MIT (Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts) quien en 1999 lanzó el proyecto “OpenCourseWare”, con una filosofía abierta y que permite divulgar los contenidos libremente a condición de citar al creador. Al tener un acceso libre por concepto, ningún alumno tiene que pertenecer a una determinada institución para realizar los cursos. En España, muchas son las universidades que disponen de MOOCs para sus alumnos y otras personas que deseen ser participantes. La Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV), la Universidad de Navarra (UNAV) o la Universidad de Alicante (UA), son algunos ejemplos de instituciones que disponen de sus propias plataformas o participan en otras más extendidas. Y como todo en Internet, nos vamos a encontrar siempre agrupadores de servicios y en este caso de MOOCs de diferentes creadores. Muchos de los cuales son universidades que se apoyan de la tecnología desarrollada por terceros para publicar sus cursos abiertos en plataformas externas. Hace años y del otro lado del charco, nacieron varias de las más conocidas en la actualidad. Hablamos de Coursera, Udacity o edX. Son plataformas que ofrecen una variedad educativa increible y certificada mayoritariamente por universidades de todo el mundo. En ellas, cualquiera puede aprender sobre tecnología, ciencia, negocios, química, filosofía, idiomas y un sin fin de posibilidades que, en algunos casos, les permiten a los alumnos hasta conseguir créditos universitarios para sus estudios académicos. Esto es así dada la gran vinculación entre los productores de los contenidos y el participante más frecuente. Nosotros no tenemos que dirigirnos a los universitarios, si no es nuestro objetivo, pero es bueno conocer que es un perfil que abunda en estas plataformas junto a empleados a los que las empresas invitan a participar para mejorar sus conocimientos y habilidades. No hace demasiado tiempo, a comienzos del 2016, de la mano del todopoderoso buscador, Google lanzó su plataforma de MOOCs, Google Activate. Ideada para formar a nuevos emprendedores en materiales digitales. Ofrecen formación online y en algunos puntos de la península ibérica, de manera presencial. Otra iniciativa española fue la de Miríadax, impulsada por la rama educativa de Telefónica. Esta pensada para el entorno de los negocios y con muchos productores universitarios de habla hispana. Que permiten extender el proyecto más allá de nuestras fronteras. Si queréis, podéis darle un vistazo a Class Central,

MIT Professor Shigeru Miyagawa explained the history of the founding of MIT OpenCourseWare.

Leading Learning: This presentation will explore an educational professional's ongoing journey as a leader and lifelong learner. It will examine free online resources for promoting personal professional growth including: social media-based communities of practice, Open Courseware, webinars, listservs, and blogs. This session aims to provide educational practitioners with ideas and inspiration for using the Internet as a tool for ongoing professional growth. Participants will see how a small investment of time can enable them to become active members in current communities of professional practice. The presentation will be produced via video though which the presenter will personally articulate her unique personal experiences and insights.

        MIT OpenCourseWare Turns 10 MIT OCW MIT OCW app in iTunes OpenStudy OCW Scholar Open Education Week (was Mar 5-10) Creative Commons The Power of Open Open Culture (“the best free cultural & educational media on the web”) MERLOT (we talked about MERLOT on show #4 )   How can you […]

Justin and Jason talk to Jason's partner in Appignite, Guyon Roche, about how they began working together and the advantages of pair programming, Guyon's take on Appignite and AnyFu, why design can be important for startups, what percent of Twitter and Facebook accounts are real, an investment manager's take on the top 1%, the most likely way to get rich, the reason for AnyFu's high-end pricing policy, the potential impact of S&P's downgrading of US debt, Rob Walling's advice to bootstrap as a partnership rather than as a LLC, Jason's idea on using resources like OpenCourseware and Tutorspree as an alternative to traditional education, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX, the status of Justin's juice diet and an update on Pluggio's growth.

Video and open content; The expanding role of video in the open content movement

Inexpensive digital cameras, laptop editing, and network distribution have detonated an explosion of vernacular video, from YouTube to Open Courseware. This is a broad look at the ways video vernaculars are changing pop culture—and a hint of changes to come in education. Six and a half minutes.