Media, Education, and the Marketplace
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this seminar on information and communications technologies in the era of globalization, with a focus on developing nations. The course examines the rapid rise of internet access over two decades and asks whether it genuinely opens economic, political, and social opportunity, or whether the international and national digital divide has proven more durable than reformers hoped. Case studies include MIT's own OpenCourseWare project as an example of ICT-driven education reform, alongside other initiatives aimed at using technology for social change in the developing world. Readings and case studies build toward the course's central questions: what the digital divide actually means, whether it should be bridged, and why past bridging attempts have largely failed. Materials include a syllabus outlining the course's stated unconventional pedagogy plus readings and assignments, all freely downloadable, with no certificate offered.