Serendipity35

The blogosphere is very incestuous with bloggers pulling content from page to page. There are even blogs that only pull content from other blogs. Sounds terribly unoriginal and possibly like some kind of infringement, but it's commonplace. Actually, if you write a blog and don't link to a few other sites it looks odd.

That's just an intro to this vacation time post from me that is a blatant pull from another blog. However, I am also hoping to get you to discover the original site as well as these selected links.

My source blog is the Open Culture blog by Dan Colman. Dan describes the blog as a way to "connect users with free, high-quality online media." Colman is the Associate Dean of Stanford's Continuing Studies Program.

Open Culture collected a great list of university podcasts that are available for free. Many of his links go directly to iTunes, so make sure you have it installed on your computer. (If you don't, get with it and download it. It's free. And for you newbies, no, you don't need an iPod to use it or listen to them. See bottom for more)

These are not just course podcasts but also speakers and cultural programs. (I'll be doing my own iTunes U list later this month.)

Here are a few I checked out to get you started:

• Boston College
• University Channel at Princeton and Princeton titles in iTunes
• Johns Hopkins
• Say you took a class at Harvard - listen to their Understanding Computers and the Internet
• and then further your study with the Stanford Law School: Center for Internet and Society
• University of Virginia
• Vanderbilt University

I couldn't end without adding in the Ecole normale supérieure (Diffusion des saviors) podcasts (Well, I could leave it out, but my wife might get mad.) and mentioning that Open Culture also did a collection of foreign language podcasts. (I thought they called it "world languages" now?) Maybe I'll try the French Pod Class while we're on vacation and surprise my wife. She can listen to The Verbcast (French Verbs by Relaxation). Nothing like an icy drink and some French verbs by the pool.

I have never met Dan Colman, but I figure he's an "open culture" kind of guy, so he'll be OK with my sifting of a few of his podcast compilation postings for my readers here. Just in case though (and for all you lawsuit types out there), make sure you know about the "sweat of the brow" argument I'll be using in my defense. (I knew that doing all those "copyright for educators" sessions would come in handy!)

For the full list of university podcasts, check out Open Culture