Monday, May 7, 2007

A "Safe" Place to Learn

Since universities today are not such places of safety and sanctuary as they used to be, learning through web should deserve a priority. As I know, MIT is one of the leading pioneers in advancing free open source learning through their OCW and Mitworld. It is quite revolutionary, and learning from those most prestigious professors becomes a click away.

Princeton University's Webmedia is another wonderful place to go. On that page, I could watch Chicago economist Steven Levitt on line for the second time (his appearance on Colbert Report being the first time) . And this time he shared with us his view both on Freakonomics, a best-selling books co-authored with Stephen Dubner, and "Beyond Freakonomics: New Musings on the Economics of Everyday Life". Although a few days ago, Greg Mankiw blogged a story in which Levitt-style economics researches of everyday life were questioned, I was pretty sure that economics as a powerful tool, could be useful not only on those classic questions of economic policy, but also on incentives and rational choices in our ordinary lives. Levitt style may serve as a Chicago school tradition, just like some works of Milton Friedman and Gary Becker.

Back from digression. On the Princeton Webmedia page, we can easily find a large amount of video lectures in various subjects. Hope you can enjoy.

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