From AI to Social Theory, Learning is Empowerment

Your OpenCourseWare Newsletter | February 2022

Now that we're fresh into 2022, here are some highlights from the month and an event that you might want to mark down on your calendar!

Upcoming Virtual Event: Open Education, Cultural Collection, and Curation: Focus on HBCUs

Open Education Event, classroom of students raising hands

You are invited to attend an upcoming talk moderated by Curt Newton, Director of OCW.

About the talk

Although more learners and educators continue to adopt and create open education resources (OERs), there has been a dearth of culturally relevant content created by and curated for underserved and underrepresented populations. In this Open Learning Talk, we’ll hear from members of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and learn about their journey to opening up and creating a more inclusive canon of OER for HBCUs and the world.

Professor Robbie K. Melton, of Tennessee State University, will lead the discussion, moderated by Curt Newton, director of MIT OpenCourseWare, and with an introduction by Sanjay Sarma, Vice President for Open Learning, MIT.

Open Education, Cultural Collection, and Curation: Focus on HBCUs
Tuesday, March 8, 12:15 pm ET

Learn more and register here

Fostering Media Literacy in the Age of Deepfakes

An illustration of a person looking at a phone that features a face with a protruding nose in the style of Pinocchio.

Image by Raphael Hadas-Lebel

MIT News recently featured an article about a free online course Media Literacy in the Age of Deepfakes, which helps learners gain the necessary skills to identify misinformation. The course was created by the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality, part of MIT Open Learning, to which MIT OCW also belongs.

Read the article and then check out the free course.

Day of AI

Open to all. No experience is needed.

On May 13, 2022, K-12 students across the country will engage in a series of freely available hands-on activities designed to introduce them to Artificial Intelligence. The program will support teachers and educators to run Day of AI activities in their own classrooms. Activities will be available for upper elementary, middle, and high school students.

Learn more about the Day of AI.

Chalk Radio Podcast

Season 3, Episode 6: “Making Ethical Decisions in Software Design with Prof. Daniel Jackson and Serena Booth.”

Our newest Chalk Radio episode is ready for you! Our inimitable host Sarah Hansen discusses how software engineers might use an ethics protocol to make more mindful decisions about the products they design.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.

New Courses

21A.859J Social Theory and Analysis: This subject presents a survey of social theory from the 17th century to the present. It focuses on the historical contexts out of which theory arises, the utility and limitations of older theories for present conditions, and the creation of new theory out of contemporary circumstances.

7.343 Single-Molecule Imaging: Capturing Nanoscale Cellular Machines in Action: In this course, we will explore how single-molecule imaging techniques capture the mega-cellular machines working in real-time.

Resources to Other Learning Materials

MIT has a multitude of exciting courses and activities on campus. And while we can’t capture all of it on OCW, we do want to make sure our learners can find these resources. So, we have created pages on OCW that point to the resources that live elsewhere. Here are some recent examples:

Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC): The aim of SERC is to facilitate the development of responsible “habits of mind and action” for those who create and deploy computing technologies, and fostering the creation of technologies in the public interest.

RAISE (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education): RAISE (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education) is a new MIT-wide initiative headquartered in the MIT Media Lab and in collaboration with the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Open Learning.

Day of AI: This curriculum features up to four hours of hands-on activities that engage kids in creative discovery, discussion, and play as they learn the fundamentals of AI, investigate the societal impact of these technologies, and bring artificial intelligence to life through lessons and activities that are accessible to all, even those with no computer science or technical background.

Please Support OCW

Support OCW during the MIT 24-Hour Challenge on March 10

It’s back! The MIT 24 Hour Challenge returns on Thursday, March 10. Join the global MIT community for a collective day of impact with a donation to OCW on March 10. A gift of any size can help us reach our challenge goal of 628 supporters and keep sharing knowledge from MIT freely with the world.

Add the MIT 24-Hour Challenge to your calendar:

We want to hear from you. How can MIT OCW help your transition back to class? Write to us at ocw@mit.edu with questions or suggestions about how we might support you on your learning or teaching journey.

For free resources for high school teachers and students, check out: