As MIT’s Senior Associate Dean for Open Learning, Christopher Capozzola’s job is to look forward, identifying new opportunities and facing new challenges in online and digital learning. But he’s also a professor of American history. In that capacity, his job also requires him to study the opportunities and challenges people faced in the past—and, in the classroom, to make those past events meaningful to young people in the present. In this episode, Prof. Capozzola draws analogies between the present moment and the late 1800s, when new communication technologies and systems for organizing and presenting information transformed the world. Just like in the 19th century, he says, we’re facing questions about the trustworthiness of the flood of information we’re exposed to, as well as about how to democratize access to that information in order to achieve a more equitable society. In overseeing MIT OpenCourseWare and other programs in MIT Open Learning, Prof. Capozzola says, he’s on a mission to make information both trustable and discoverable, and to seek out—and collaborate with—the innovators and philanthropists (the “Deweys and Carnegies” of today) who can support that mission.

Relevant Resources:

MIT OpenCourseWare

The OCW Educator Portal

Prof. Capozzola’s faculty page

The Dewey decimal classification system (PDF) 

The Carnegie libraries

21H.221 The Places of Migration in United States History on MIT OpenCourseWare

21H.223 War & American Society on MIT OpenCourseWare

21H.224 Law and Society in US History on MIT OpenCourseWare

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

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Credits

Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

Brett Paci, producer  

Dave Lishansky, producer 

Show notes by Peter Chipman