Kenn Magnum has an obsession, an obsession with education and knowledge.

“Most of my continuing education comes from the local branch of our state university. MIT's program makes an excellent supplement for my hardcore education obsession - especially on a teacher's salary,” Magnum says. “I am blown away that MIT would offer such a wonderful service as OpenCourseWare.”

After seeing a recent story about MIT OCW on his local news in Chandler, AZ, Magnum logged on and found a free offering of MIT course materials - similar to the open materials he offers his computer science students. “When teaching a class I will often post my notes, assignments and such to the Internet,” he explains. “I use OCW to research topics I am teaching, or to allow my students to use it in their research.”

With more than 60 course offerings from the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Magnum sees MIT OCW as an invaluable professional development tool for him, and teachers like him around the globe.

“When I choose courses for my continuing education I usually take classes offered by my district because they are discounted or free. District classes are often focused on better techniques in teaching, not necessarily a specific field of study,” he says. “MIT's OCW allows me to study topics specific to my discipline.”

In addition, after spending time looking through the materials for a variety of courses - including 6.034: Artificial Intelligence and 6.061/6.979: Introduction to Electric Power Systems - he plans on directing his students to the MIT materials as the basis for a new school activity. “When I have gone completely through the class I will begin to use much of it in an artificial intelligence club, and then in some of the more advanced classes,” he says. “Lecture notes, quiz review and solutions have been most helpful.”

Kenn Magnum
Computer science teacher at Chandler High School
Chandler, Arizona

When Professor M. Anantha Pai visits the MIT OpenCourseWare Web site, he sees wonderful possibilities.

“OCW is an excellent idea and as usual MIT is way ahead of others,” Pai recently emailed the staff of MIT OCW. “The engineering colleges in India have mushroomed with bright students and inadequate faculty. One has to fill the gap and I think OCW can fill those needs. For the U.S., it is good for faculty to browse through the courses at the top tech school in the country and compare notes with their own courses. For schools in the developing nations, the OCW can be a useful teaching aid to supplement their teaching.”

An instructor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Pai has taught graduate students using the Internet, and he has a particular interest in fostering science and technology education in India. He and his wife, Nandini Pai, manage a Web site that captures the latest developments in information technology, biotechnology, banking, energy, communications, and space technology in India. He recently provided a link off that Web site to the Wired Magazine article about MIT OCW.

He sees real value in the lecture notes, course calendars and syllabi offered by MIT OCW - the three pedagogical elements that every course site has in common. On a forthcoming trip to Bangalore, India, he plans on telling as many people as he could about the educational possibilities available using the MIT OCW site.

“OCW is impressive. I have sent it to some top IT people in India. I am going there for a month in October to Bangalore and if I can be of help let me know,” Pai says. “The key thing is to build learning communities as the [Wired magazine] article says.”

M. Anantha Pai
Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois
Urbana, Illinois

The world's largest archipelago, Indonesia runs in an arc along the northeast corner of the Indian Ocean. With nearly 210 million people inhabiting about 6,000 of the 17,508 islands, it is a country that can benefit greatly from decentralized access to knowledge and information made freely available on the Internet.

Dr. Naswil Idris first learned about MIT OpenCourseWare while attending an educational conference on another chain of islands -- Honolulu, Hawaii -- and he has seized upon the possibilities that open access to MIT course materials holds not only for his nation, but for several of the countries around his home in Jakarta, Indonesia.

A professor of communications, Idris has told his students at Universitas Professor Dr. Moestopo Beragama, the Universitas Negeri Jakarta, the Universitas Dr. Soetomo, and the Indonesian Open Learning University to visit the MIT OCW site and says he can envision many courses taught at his university will incorporate large chunks of material from the MIT OCW site.

“In September in Indonesia we have Information and Communications Technology (ICT) month and Telecenters month involving high-level government officials in the country, NGOs, universities, the ICT industry, newspaper, radio, and TV,” he says. “It is a campaign to use Internet as much as possible to empower the Indonesian people… As a speaker, moderator, member of team adviser of the committee of the ICT month and Telecenters month, I have encouraged Indonesian people to use MIT OCW as source of knowledge.”

Dr. Naswil Idris
Professor and Senior Lecturer in Communication Technologies at the Universitas Professor Dr. Moestopo Beragama (UPDMB) in Jakarta, the Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ) in Jakarta, the Universitas Dr. Soetomo (UNITOMO) in Surabaya, and the Indonesian Open Learning University
Jakarta, Indonesia