Serendipity35

When someone you know, or some article you are reading, mentions Ajax, do you think they are referring to a doomed Greek from the Iliad? Does the phrase "Stronger than Dirt!" immediately cross your mind? If the context is Web 2.0 programming and not the madness of Achilleus or the stains on your white camisole, you might have some use for Google's Code University.

Drawing from the expanding library of open source licensed lesson materials and full course curricula, Google Code has packaged reference material and tutorials in IT subject areas. While currently limited to a handful of topics, the courseware is available free-of-charge for online study. The current selections range from programming languages, web security, MySQL database structures to distributed system management. Some of the content is built upon Google's internal infrastructure and some, like the entry on Introduction to Problem Solving on Large Scale Clusters contributed by the University of Washington, are full college courses. Google Code University also supports a "Group" area where educators can discuss issues relating to the online learning format and even upload content as a shared resource in the forum.In addition to the ready-made courses, there is a CS Curriculum Search that provides keyword searches to educational resources that are available on the web but outside of Google's Code Universities environment. Google, though, isn't the only player in the open source curriculum field and that field is not limited to computer science topics.

First described in a post last August, NJIT has partnered with industries, community colleges and high schools to produce jobskill-specific courses and training materials that support potential employees in targeted markets. Initially supporting employment opportunities in the financial-sector, the program has expanded to include the pharmaceutical job-market and IT industries. Working with the national Wired project in the NorthEast Region, the course materials have been made available for free download on Curriki and direct links will be published on employment information sites such as New Jersey's State Employment Training Commission employment information website, New Jersey Next Stop.

Distance Learning has come so far from its roots in mail-order education that it seems impossible to have gotten where it is from where it had begun. The Solid State Electronics correspondence course I took in the summer of 1975 from DeVry Technical is a relic of a past millennium. That summer when semi-conductor hole-flow and field-effect transistors carried my every day, and mighty Ajax was still stronger than dirt.