Poll: Which MIT course would be a distance-learning bestseller? 2.000 How and Why Machines Work 6.034 Artificial Intelligence 24.111 Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics 8.282 Introduction to Astrophysics and Astronomy IAP Charm School

Libraries of the Future? Peek at MIT's libraries of the future in this campaign commentary.

Using Technology to Melt Educational Boundaries

Picture a freshman calculus student using a virtual-reality interface in her dorm room to experiment with three-dimensional surfaces. Haptic gloves in place, she stretches the 3-D surface she can see in her headset to investigate partial derivatives and integration. That's just one vision of the future that may become fact as MIT steps up to a new technical challenge: using technology to extend education itself.

MIT, under the direction of the MIT Council on Educational Technology (MITCET) formed last year, aims to enlarge the campus educational experience and to create exportable models. It's part of MIT's long history of innovation in education, starting with the founding principle of "learning by doing," and extending through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and new models of technology-enhanced education--including distance learning--now being developed. This vision is grounded in an array of projects, including many created over the past decade by the Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES) and many yet to come, such as the Microsoft-sponsored I-Campus project, Inventing the Global Classroom.

PIVoT to the Future

CAES is one node in MIT's efforts in distance learning, technology-enabled education, media production and delivery, and in non-degree lifelong learning. A 10-minute video online demonstrates current initiatives. Says CAES Director Richard Larson, "Technology can enhance the quality of an MIT education in many ways--including web access to study materials, animations and simulations that can help develop intuition, and the technology-enabled learning studio" (read more in an interview with Richard Larson).

Visit CAES's research arm, the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI), to glimpse web-based projects, such as these three:

• Physics Interactive VideoTutor (PIVoT)--An interactive web-based learning environment--featuring the ebullient Professor Walter Lewin on video and a virtual tutor--augments the teaching of Introductory Newtonian Physics.
• MIT Shakespeare Project--An electronic teaching and research environment offers film--such as Richard Burton as Hamlet--and video, digital art collections, stage photographs, and, of course, texts.
• Seeing the Unseen: The Life and Work of Harold "Doc" Edgerton--Click through the Strobe Alley door to recreate some of the astute scientist and inventor of stroboscopic photography's favorite experiments, such as The Piddler.

On Demand Video: "Cog, the Humanoid Robot" and Other Options

CAES's six groups include the MIT Video Productions which created these and other videos available online:

• "Cog, the Humanoid Robot,"
• "The Nepal Water Project," and
• "Proteus the Penguin Boat"

CAES's Advanced Study Program allows key individuals and organizations to participate in MIT's active research environment through a custom-designed curriculum. A typical program consists of academic courses, seminars, and individual studies guided by faculty members from 20 departments. Full-time programs have included participants from more than 500 organizations in over 70 countries.

go on to Part 2: Distance Learning Begins by Degree ...

Undergraduate Project Creates WebLab WebLab, a UROP project guided by EECS Professor Jesus del Alamo, allows users to test the characteristics of microelectronics devices from a remote location using the web.