Online courses directory (2511)

This course is based on the work of the MIT-African Internet Technology Initiative (MIT-AITI). MIT-AITI is an innovative approach by MIT students to integrate computers and internet technology into the education of students in African schools. The program focuses upon programming principles, cutting-edge internet technology, free open-source systems, and even an entrepreneurship seminar to introduce students in Africa to the power of information technology in today's world.

MIT-AITI achieves this goal by sending MIT students to three African nations in order to teach both students and teachers through intensive classroom and lab sessions for six weeks. The AITI program is implemented with emphasis on classroom teaching, community-oriented projects, and independent learning.

This course has two major components:

1. Content from a spring 2005 preparatory seminar offered by the MIT-AITI leadership. The goal of this seminar is to adequately prepare the AITI student teachers for their upcoming summer experiences in Africa.
2. A snapshot of the summer 2005 MIT-AITI program. This includes the Java®-based curriculum that MIT-AITI ambassadors teach in Africa each year, as well as content from an entrepreneurship seminar offered concurrently with the IT class.

"Parrhesia" was an Athenian right to frank and open speaking, the right that, like the First Amendment, demands a "fearless speaker" who must challenge political powers with criticism and unsolicited advice. Can designer and artist respond today to such a democratic call and demand? Is it possible to do so despite the (increasing) restrictions imposed on our liberties today? Can the designer or public artist operate as a proactive "parrhesiatic" agent and contribute to the protection, development and dissemination of "fearless speaking" in Public Space?

This course examines the major aesthetic, social, and political elements which have shaped modern Japanese culture and society. There are readings on contemporary Japan and historical evolution of the culture are coordinated with study of literary texts, film, and art, along with an analysis of everyday life and leisure activities.

This course examines the major aesthetic, social, and political elements which have shaped modern Japanese culture and society. There are readings on contemporary Japan and historical evolution of the culture are coordinated with study of literary texts, film, and art, along with an analysis of everyday life and leisure activities.

This course examines the major aesthetic, social, and political elements which have shaped modern Japanese culture and society. There are readings on contemporary Japan and historical evolution of the culture are coordinated with study of literary texts, film, and art, along with an analysis of everyday life and leisure activities.

The fundamental concepts, and approaches of aerospace engineering, are highlighted through lectures on aeronautics, astronautics, and design. Active learning aerospace modules make use of information technology. Student teams are immersed in a hands-on, lighter-than-air (LTA) vehicle design project, where they design, build, and fly radio-controlled LTA vehicles. The connections between theory and practice are realized in the design exercises. Required design reviews precede the LTA race competition. The performance, weight, and principal characteristics of the LTA vehicles are estimated and illustrated using physics, mathematics, and chemistry known to freshmen, the emphasis being on the application of this knowledge to aerospace engineering and design rather than on exposure to new science and mathematics.

This course provides an introduction to mathematical modeling of computational problems. It covers the common algorithms, algorithmic paradigms, and data structures used to solve these problems. The course emphasizes the relationship between algorithms and programming, and introduces basic performance measures and analysis techniques for these problems.

This course provides a substantive overview of U.S. politics and an introduction to the discipline of political science. It surveys the institutional foundations of U.S. politics as well as the activities of political elites, organizations, and ordinary citizens. It also explores the application of general political science concepts and analytic frameworks to specific episodes and phenomena in U.S. politics.

Analysis I (18.100) in its various versions covers fundamentals of mathematical analysis: continuity, differentiability, some form of the Riemann integral, sequences and series of numbers and functions, uniform convergence with applications to interchange of limit operations, some point-set topology, including some work in Euclidean n-space.

MIT students may choose to take one of three versions of 18.100: Option A (18.100A) chooses less abstract definitions and proofs, and gives applications where possible. Option B (18.100B) is more demanding and for students with more mathematical maturity; it places more emphasis from the beginning on point-set topology and n-space, whereas Option A is concerned primarily with analysis on the real line, saving for the last weeks work in 2-space (the plane) and its point-set topology. Option C (18.100C) is a 15-unit variant of Option B, with further instruction and practice in written and oral communication.

This course examines the production, transmission, preservation and qualities of folk music in the British Isles and North America from the 18th century to the folk revival of the 1960s and the present. There is a special emphasis on balladry, fiddle styles, and African-American influences. The class sings ballads and folk songs from the Child and Lomax collections as well as other sources as we examine them from literary, historical, and musical points of view. Readings supply critical and background materials from a number of sources. Visitors and films bring additional perspectives.

This class introduces students to the methods and perspectives of cultural anthropology. Readings emphasize case studies in very different settings (a nuclear weapons laboratory, a cattle-herding society of the Sudan, and a Jewish elder center in Los Angeles). Although some of the results and conclusions of anthropology will be discussed, emphasis will be on appreciating cultural difference and its implications, studying cultures and societies through long-term fieldwork, and most of all, learning to think analytically about other people's lives and our own.

Through the comparative study of different cultures, anthropology explores fundamental questions about what it means to be human. It seeks to understand how culture both shapes societies, from the smallest island in the South Pacific to the largest Asian metropolis, and affects the way institutions work, from scientific laboratories to Christian mega-churches. This course will provide a framework for analyzing diverse facets of human experience such as gender, ethnicity, language, politics, economics, and art.
 

This class covers basic concepts of nuclear physics with emphasis on nuclear structure and interactions of radiation with matter. Topics include elementary quantum theory; nuclear forces; shell structure of the nucleus; alpha, beta and gamma radioactive decays; interactions of nuclear radiations (charged particles, gammas, and neutrons) with matter; nuclear reactions; fission and fusion.

This course provides a foundation to the design of the environment from the scale of the object, to the building to the larger territory. The design disciplines of architecture as well as urbanism and landscape are examined in context of the larger influence of the arts and sciences. Students are expected to develop skills in thinking and analysis, spatial representation, and design methodologies. Through lectures and design exercises, students are provided an opportunity to establish a reference for understanding the discipline of architecture and environmental design, and are given an introduction to design fundamentals and the design process.