7 Excellent Open Courseware Collections for History Buffs
Learning about history is mostly book learning. While it is true that a classroom setting allows you to debate with others the causes and ramifications of certain historical events, much of the study of history is just in learning what happened. Open courseware collections are perfect for this type of learning because you can pick up all you need to know.
AP History Lesson
AP History Lesson is a courseware collection that focuses on more recent periods of American history. It covers some of the basics and is an excellent introduction for history buffs. Its inclusion of photographs and interviews is sure to spur you on to want to learn more about American history.
The American Civil War
The American Civil War focuses on this period of American history. The Civil War started off as an attempt to restore the integrity of the Union and transformed into a struggle over the issue of slavery and the movement toward the freedom of four million slaves.
American Revolution
American Revolution teaches of the events that transpired as the colonists moved toward creating their own independent nation. The changes went far beyond the political as social norms were also forever changed. It was this series of events that moved this nation towards the continuing growth of freedoms and the development of the nation from a fledgling one to a major player on the world stage.
History Of Western Civilization
History of Western Civilization is a collection that moves into European history. This course begins with ancient times and proceeds into the early modern era. This collection touches on the Crusades, The Renaissance, and the Reformation.
The Anthropology Of Computing
The Anthropology of Computing looks at computers and their history. Their construction and usage is directly related to the development of culture and the circumstances surrounding them in history. Computers have grown as society has. Investigating their history reveals the developments in society as a whole in the fairly recent past.
Media In Cultural Context: Popular Readerships
Media in Cultural Context: Popular Readerships is a courseware collection that focuses on media as it has related to, affected, and has been influenced by culture. It speaks of popular reading and how that has evolved over time. It examines the history of popular reading as a barometer for cultural attitudes and interests over time. This course gives unique insight into cultural perspectives throughout history.
Art History
Art History is a collection that takes you through a comprehensive history of Western art. It includes discussions of sculpture, painting, and architecture throughout history. It may seem like an interesting addition to a history curriculum, but you can tell a lot about a culture through its art.
These 7 excellent open courseware collections for history buffs provide an interesting snapshot of history. The history of any nation or of the world at large is a massive topic that will allow any history buff to continue studies of this fascinating field indefinitely. This collection of resources will give a nice mix of historical perspectives to pique anyone’s interest in history.
Thomas Rheinecker is a freelance author and writes about education topics, such as how to research online university rankings, accreditation, and more.
Related Reading:
The Information: A History, a Theory, a FloodJames Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.
The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself.
And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.
