There are a lot of people who would like to go to college without, you know, actually going to college, and the University of California at Berkeley has taken steps to make that more of a possibility.

Using the power of the Internet and the popularity of online video sharing, UC Berkeley has begun “uploading video recordings of course lectures to YouTube.”

What started several years ago with the publication of course syllabi and other electronic documentation, freely available to all who might wish to learn for the sake of learning quickly expanded into a far-reaching pot pourri of audio recordings, dubbed podcasts. 

I believe the first widely publicized delivery of such material was the debut of MIT’s OpenCourseWare program.

Recordings were made of lectures and speeches, and today, some institutions of higher education have even gone so far as to deliver full, unabridged courses, for anyone to attend – as a non-participatory, on-demand audience, that is.

Full Video Courses Now Available Online

Today, like was witnessed around the time of the birth of the podcast, a select few video captures of educational colloquia and even a few unique courses are being made available for download by various colleges. 

UC Berkeley in particular, one of the most historically notable campuses in the US in the past century, is seeing to it that it puts to the Web as many such visual recordings as possible. The video host of choice? Why, YouTube, of course.

The university’s first round of captures to be uploaded to the very popular video emporium consists of roughly 300 hours of lectures, with subjects ranging from Chemistry to Physics to Non-Violence to, interestingly enough, Search Engines.

There is a particular “study” made available for perusal which just so happens to include a recording of a lecture given by a Mr Sergey Brin. I’m sure you’ve heard of the fellow.

Do keep in mind that these are college lectures being presented on YouTube, not funny bloopers or anything of the sort. So don’t venture into the collection thinking you’re going to be thoroughly entertained by what you see. It’s what you hear that, if anything, is going to have you enthralled.

The Tip Of The Iceberg?

And remember, UC Berkeley just started this project. The 300 hour cache that has been made available to us Web viewers is likely only the tip of the iceberg, as the old adage goes. 

Look for a steady expansion in the way of course material and variety of subjects. If you’re through with the science courses, you’ll probably have a whole lotta literary analysis to forage, and so on and so forth.

Well, that’s about all I have to say on the matter. If you wish to engross yourself on videos already made available by the nice, tech-savvy folk at Berkeley, head on over to this page, where you’ll undoubtedly find plenty to pore over. Enjoy!

Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com

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