Great Lectures from The Teaching Company
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Learning/article.aspx?ID=24

One of the real challenges in education is finding ways to give more people access to brilliant teachers who inspire and excite with their ability to bring material to life. Today there are some great examples of how technology can enable almost anyone to learn from the world’s greatest minds.

A lot of people ask me what I’m reading and how I learn about new topics that interest me. I am fortunate to have time to read a lot and I also like to view courses online from MIT’s OpenCourseware, Academic Earth, and others. These courses have ignited a passion of mine, which is to think about how to harness this approach so students who otherwise wouldn’t have access can experience these great courses and learn from these great teachers.

One of my favorite sources for great lectures is The Teaching Company. Most of their courses are available as audio downloads and on DVD. I had a chance to meet with The Teaching Company team, and the way they find the very best professors and best courseware is impressive and it shows in the overall quality of the teaching.

Most of my friends know how much I enjoy these courses as they’ve received many of them as holiday gifts.

At first I just watched all their science courses – geology, biology, medicine. Those are quite good and I learned quite a bit.

Then I watched Big History which is taught by David Christian and is still my favorite course of all. The course is so broad that it synthesizes the history of everything including the sciences into one framework.

I’ve gotten to know David over the past couple of years and we’re starting some work now to offer a version of Big History for high school students free online – it’s something that I am incredibly excited about.

The first economics course I watched was Modern Economic Issues by Robert Whaples.

This course does a very good job explaining the economic viewpoint and how it applies in lots of situations.

I try to bring this type of thinking to problems. You could say this course is mostly a microeconomics course – individual and business decisions based on price signals.

Whaples also talks about government policies relative to wages and improving the economy.

I would say Whaples is a very good teacher – clear with great examples and explanations.

My second economics course was America and the New Global Economy by Timothy Taylor.

This is a fantastic course focusing on macroeconomics (overall economic results). He really explains what has happened in the world economy.

I found his region-by-region analysis incredibly valuable. I knew some of the facts but I had never seen it explained as a whole like he did.

I would say he is an even better teacher than Whaples – one of the best even by the very high standards of The Teaching Company.

His discussion of government policies including investing in education and infrastructure are extremely lucid.

I agree with both of these economists almost 100%, even when they talk about some issues that are considered controversial.

Neither of these courses requires you to know economics before you watch them. They both explain the terms they use very well.

If you are going to watch both I would suggest doing it in the order that I did.

I’ll be writing more about some of my OpenCourseware favorites as well as other good sources for online educational material.

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数年之后，由于要准备TOEFL考试的教授演讲的段子，这才使我想起了绝佳的材料：TTC Course。又回头看了看TTC的介绍，VC上虽有，但是很不详细，也不愿上官方网站看过分粉饰的文字，便求助于老朋友维基百科。在维基上这个页面查到了相应的信息，便顺手翻译成了中文，希望能有更多的中国人能够了解这套学习资料，以下是我的翻译稿（时间仓促，纰漏很多，望贤者于此页面进行订正修补，不胜感谢！）：

The Teaching Company 是一家制造全国顶级教授演讲录音及录影的公司。这些教授在华盛顿特区外的一家特别的工作室录制这些课程，然后课程被转制成磁带、CD、DVD、MPEG-4、MP3等格式出售。

The Teaching Company公司由Thomas M. Rollins先生创建于1990年，Thomas M. Rollins先生是美国前参议院委员会劳工及人力资源首席顾问，毕业于哈佛大学法学院。他在学习过程中注意到，使用录像带学习的效率很低。于是他开始尝试发起一个政府项目，为公众制作磁带，但是由于法律的限制而无法实践。当他离任时，他抱着这个想法而开始搜寻顶级教授来制作课程，并且销售给公众。

截至2007年，这家公司共提供了超过260门课程，内容总时长达3000小时，跨越9门不同学科，分别是：商业学和经济学、艺术和音乐、古代史和中世纪史、近代史、文学和英语、哲学和思想史、宗教、科学和数学以及社会科学。

课程的目标是提供成人教育和终身教育，大学本科非专业的典型知识的教育；不仅如此，他还有一系列为高中生提供的课程。每一门课程都包括一些印有大纲、推荐书目、教授简介以及思考问题的补充小册子。此外，课程还提供全文的文本。

课程有多种不同的载体。起初，仅有磁带或是VHS录像带。后来，逐渐出现了CD及DVD版本，而现在也能下载到MP3版本。

2006年10月2日，这家公司被一家私募股权投资公司Brentwood Associates收购。

Emule的速度实在太慢，我只好先求助于BT，若没有再转向Emule下载。以“TTC”为关键字搜索，果不其然，可爱的mininova返回了很多条信息，筛选之后发现有几个种子不错，下载后查看Tracker信息，原来是Demonid上发布的。按图索骥，找到了原发布帖，竟然是2年前的！至今仍未断种，而且下载的人很多！看来共享能否源远流长，关键还要靠大家是否有分享的精神。虽然我承认Emule更适合保源散种，但是那些长效分享者（很多是外国人，鲜有中国人，虽然中国是一个Emule大国）的分享精神才是值得称道的。

值得注意的是，以上所说的种子并非包括TTC的全部课程，TTC的全部课程可以在TTC的官方网站查询，当然你也可以通过查看TTC的课程介绍再考虑是否要下载各门课程。当然，这几个种子是两年来陆续发布的种子，而最新的一个也是半年前发布的，自然会有很多难以包含的东西。更重要的是，TTC的很多视频课程体积都十分庞大，少说都有4G，如果靠单纯的BT，似乎很难存活下去，再说发布这种文件对发布者也是一个极大的考验。当然咯，如果能听完目前六个种子中的所有课程，你也是一个厉害的人了。要知道，听这些课程，至少比听那些到大学胡混的所谓的教授的课程要有意思得多……

另外，我又下载了一个List，是原发布者打包的。并将其抽取出来，整理成了Word文档（主要是方便大家筛选自己需要的课程，简单加亮即可）。现在一并将以上的种子、课程列表PDF版，以及我自己制作的课程列表Word版打包，希望能对各位有帮助。

–>请点我下载

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