System activated. T minus 10, 9,
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, zero and
liftoff. . .You know I often get
asked how I got interested in
space is this something that
happened as a childhood dream?
Yeah, in a sense. You know when
I was growing up as a young
child, I'm old enough, that was
before Sputnik; before any humans
had been in space. I was in New
York City, my dad used to take me
to the planetarium all the time,
he was kind of interested in
astronomy and I don't know what
it was that clicked but there was
just something about space. It
represented the future. I mean,
the public media at those times
mostly of course newspapers,
magazines, televisions, they were
full of stories about the coming
space age, so it was just really
exciting.
Jeff was the first astronaut
to log more than 1000 hours
aboard the space shuttle. He made
five space shuttle missions
including the first mission to
repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
Here at MIT Jeff is a fabulous
educator. He's very active in
teaching both undergraduate
and graduate classes in the
Department of Aeronautics and
Astronautics. In fact Jeff teaches
16.00: our freshman introductory
aerospace class, which is what
16.00x was in part based on.
MIT started to join the revolution
in online education creating the
MITx program which feeds into
the material into the edX
platform and we decided that
this introductory course would
be a good thing to share with a
much wider audience throughout
the world. So 16.00 became 16.00x.
16.00x is unique in that its a
technical course but its also
available to the general public.
So we try to present complex
topics in a way that is very
accessible to everyone. Even
those without a technical
background. And I think thats what
really contributed to the appeal
and the popularity of this course
worldwide because there are so
many people who are very
interested in spaceflight but
thought it would take so much
engineering education for me
to even begin to understand what
thats all about. But we've
actually tried to make the course
as accessible as possible so that
students can still get the basic
ideas of what astronautics and
human spaceflight is all about
without having gone through an
engineering education.
It's not a trivial task putting
on an online course. It takes
a lot of personnel in making the
course in the first place. We
had people looking after the
video to actually do the video
filming. And of course before
that I had to write out scripts
that were much more, I think,
extensive and detailed then when
I'm talking in class because you
really have to tailor the lectures
to an online audience with which
you don't have direct give-and-take
contact. When I'm talking in class
I can look at the students and
I can look at their eyes. I can
see are they paying more attention
to reading their email on their
computers or are they paying
attention to me. That direct
face-to-face interaction you
don't get. I'm talking to a TV
camera right now and thats how I
have to give my lectures. And I'm
pretty used to talking to cameras
so I can do it. I can treat the
camera almost as a person, but
you don't get that direct feedback.
And so we have to structure the
course so that I give my lectures
and then we try and make problem
sets and in that way try to gauge
whether the online students are
actually getting the material.
And I'm delighted it seems to
have been very popular and we've
gotten a lot of really, really
nice feedback.
Do you have any feedback for the
course facilitators?
"Well I'd like to say that the
fact that the lectures were so
well explained and engaging may
be the reason I was so successful
in this course.
So it was a very interesting
class, I enjoyed it a lot and I'm
proud to have been associated
with it. Thank you.
You know, MIT is a distant dream.
But you guys help us make that
dream come true. So give us more
and more and more of the MIT
experience. Thank you.
One of the biggest strengths
about 16.00x is that we had an
enormous and very diverse student
population. We had over 12,000
students enrolled online and
they come from almost 150
different countries. And this led
to one of the challenges with the
course as well because students
coming from so many different
backgrounds we had to make sure
they were all on the same page.
And its really exciting to see so
many of these things coming
together: the people, the
technology, the ideas and the
passion for education,
culminating in something like
16.00x and really extending MIT's
reach to have global impact.
Its just the topic. I mean
spaceflight is something that
a lot of people are interested
in but they don't really know
much about it. And having the
opportunity to learn about it
for free, from an astronaut who
is also a professor at MIT, that
is just such an incredible and
unique opportunity that really
would only exist in the online
community.
I think it does indicate that
there are real changes going on
in education and we have yet to
figure out how online courses
are ultimately going to change
public education but we know
enough now to know that exciting
things are happening and it was
great being a part of this in
the early days of online learning
with 16.00x.
Don't lose sight of the big
picture. Remember that the reason
you became and aerospace engineer
was because you dreamed of flight.
Never, never forget your dreams.