Archive for the 'current events' Category

Current Events in Context: Typhoon Morakot

As news of the devistation in Taiwan and China comes in from Typhoon Morakot, our thoughts are with the people in the affected areas and our friends there in the open education community.   The OOPS team in Taiwan has taken open sharing to a new level with the blood drive they’ve undertaken to help the victims of this storm.

As Taiwan and China recover from this disaster and the hurricane season begins in earnest in the Western Hemisphere as well, we are again confronted with the challenges of understanding the causes of these storms, what impact global warming may be having on their frequency and severity, and how best to prepare for and recover from their effects.  In another edition of Current Events in Context, I’ve mined the MIT site for courses that can help address these challenges.  As always, please feel free to add courses and content from your own favorite OER site.

Understanding climate

12.003 Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics Fall 2008

12.307 Weather and Climate Laboratory Spring 2009

12.333 Atmospheric and Ocean Circulations Spring 2004

12.811 Tropical Meteorology Spring 2005

Lessons of Hurricane Katrina

4.001J /11.004J CityScope: New Orleans Spring 2007

11.945 Katrina Practicum Spring 2006

Disaster Recovery

11.941 Disaster, Vulnerability and Resilience Spring 2005

NextMap Disaster Management
MAS.965 / 6.976 / SP.716 NextLab I: Designing Mobile Technologies for the Next Billion Users Fall 2008

Current Events in Context: H1N1

There’s been a lot of speculation about how the H1N1 virus will spread in the upcoming flu season, and how virulent it will be. For a better understanding of the science behind epidemics, what we might expect this fall and how medical systems cope with outbreaks of disease, I’ve pulled together this list of starter resources from Consortium member sites.  Same caveats as last time, though this topic lends itself to a less MIT-centric list.  Please suggest additions if I have missed something on your school’s site.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health:
Impact of Pandemic Influenza on Public Health
550.694.81 Fundamentals of Epidemiology I
340.627.81  Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases

MIT:
6.891 Computational Evolutionary Biology
7.340 Under the Radar Screen: How Bugs Trick Our Immune Defenses

University of Nottingham:
Flu pandemic : how prepared are we?

TU Delft:
Public hygiene and epidemiology (CT5420)

Tufts University:
233 Population Health, Spring 2007

Current Events in Context: Iran’s Election Dispute

The recent dramatic events in Iran bring together numerous complicated issues including the political and cultural history of Iran and the Middle East, the role of women in culture and politics, and the impact of social media on world events.  Courses throughout the OCW Consortium can be useful in providing context for the events surrounding the current election dispute.  The following is a list I’ve pulled together, drawing heavily on the MIT catalog I am most familiar with.  I encourage the OCW community to think of it as a starter list and to suggest additional resources.

Iranian History

21H.615 The Middle East in 20th Century (MIT)
Spring 2003

17.405 / 17.406 Seminar on Politics and Conflict in the Middle East (MIT)
Fall 2003

MELC 20040 - Islamic Societies of the Middle East and North Africa: Religion, History, and Culture
(Notre Dame)
Fall 2005

Democracy and Political Theory

21A.245J / 17.045J Power: Interpersonal, Organizational and Global Dimensions
Fall 2005

17.508 The Rise and Fall of Democracy/ Regime Change
Spring 2002

17.522 Politics and Religion
Fall 2006

21H.001 How to Stage a Revolution
Fall 2007

17.582 Civil War
Spring 2005

21A.225J / SP.621J / WGS.621J Violence, Human Rights, and Justice
Fall 2004

Women and Politics

17.905 Forms of Political Participation: Old and New
Spring 2005

New Media and Politics

CMS.998 / CMS.600 New Media Literacies
Spring 2007

Art 23AC Foundations of American Cyber-Culture
Fall 2007

21L.015 Introduction to Media Studies
Fall 2003

21A.348 Photography and Truth
Spring 2005