This AP article reports on MIT's OpenCourseWare program, which "makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free -- lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures," according to the story. The trend has caught on: "More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware." Meanwhile, some schools have taken to offering course material and videos through a special section of Apple's iTunes, and the University of California, Berkeley, will soon be posting course lectures on YouTube.
Here at GTO, we're looking forward to stealing a moment or two to check out some cool classes from these universities. But we have to wonder what kind of world it's become when we play hooky so that we can attend school.