Whether you’re five or ninety five, the internet has a lot to
offer. Particularly when the topic is education, the resources on the internet
are endless. Best of all, many high quality sites are completely free. From
history to coding, excellent free education awaits on the following
25 sites.
1. Coursera
Coursera.org is a
website that partners with universities and organizations around the world.
This brings a wide variety of topics and perspectives to one searchable
database. Coursera is a powerful tool for free online education, and includes
courses from many top universities, museums and trusts. This gives the site an
extremely wide range of in-depth courses. Coursera is extremely useful if
you’re looking to study many different topics, or want courses from different
schools and groups.
Partnering with many post secondary schools, Khan Academy
offers a useable, well organized interface. Also curating many courses
from around the web, Khan Academy offers impressive depth on many different
subjects. Among the more well known educational sites, Khan Academy is also
incredibly useable, which may make it easier to keep learning goals.
If you are struggling to find exactly the material you are
looking for, try Open Culture’s listing of free online education courses. The
page highlights 1000 lectures, videos and podcasts from universities around the
world. The site features a lot of material found only on universities private
sites, all in easy to browse categories. This means you can find hundreds of
university courses, without having to visit and search each university’s own
site. Open Culture’s list features courses from England, Australia, Wales and
many state universities around the United States. A very helpful resource for
finding many courses in one area of study.
4. Udemy
Udemy’s free courses are similar in concept to Coursera’s but
additionally allows users to build custom courses from lessons. Working with
many top professors and schools, the site mixes the customizable platform of
other sites with a heavy emphasis on top quality content. This is another site
however, that mixes free and paid content.
Another site with courses from many different schools is
Academic Earth. Much like the three sites above, Academic Earth brings together
top notch courses from many different sources, and focuses on offering a wide
variety of subjects. Academic Earth lists courses by subject and school, so it
might be easier to find what you’re looking for.
6. edX
Another great option for free online education is edX. Also
bringing together courses from many different schools, the site
has impressive, quality information for everyone. edX covers a great
range of topics.
Unlike the previous sites on this lists, Alison is a free
education site offering certification in some areas. Alison offers courses
mainly in business, technology, and health, but also includes language learning
courses. A great option if users need certification for their learning, Alison
also offers school curriculum courses.
A very convenient place for free online education is iTunesU,
because it integrates seamlessly with your iPod, or any app-ready Apple mobile
device. On iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, users download the iTunesU app. Desktop
users can access iTunesU on the upper right hand corner of the iTunes
Store. iTunesU is also convenient because the store is categorized much like
iTunes. Users can search learning materials in many different ways, including
genre and topic. However, courses are often a mix of free podcasts or videos, and
paid content. ITunesU does include courses on a pretty wide scope of topics,
but does not integrate with Android, Google or Windows mobile devices.
Your hub for all the online offerings from Stanford University,
Stanford Online offers self-paced and session based courses. While Coursera
features some courses from Stanford, many classes are only available via other
hosts. Some courses require iTunes, but most are completed in your web browser.
Stanford Online is a great site for high quality courses, though the topics are
somewhat limited compared to sites partnered with more than one school.
Like Stanford Online, Harvard Extension features free online
education courses from Harvard only. This is another excellent source for top
notch course material, though the course variety is less rich than multi-school
sites. Additionally, Harvard Extension allows you to search for courses by
professional certificate. This makes it much easier if your online education
goal includes certification.
Open Yale Courses echoes Harvard Extension and Stanford Online,
in that it offers only courses from Yale. While the site is similarly limited
to topics taught at the school, Open Yale Courses offers a lot of videos of
actual campus lectures. The availability of videos makes the site a great
option if you’re looking for quality courses, but learn better by watching than
by reading.
Much like the other schools on this list, UC Berkeley has a
variety of free online education options. The school has slightly fewer courses
than the schools above, but includes some supplementary lectures, webcasts and
RSS Feeds, making it easy to keep up with the topics you choose.
Similarly, MIT offers a variety of free courses. The school has
a comparable number of courses to the schools above, plus includes very
in-depth course materials on the subjects available. MIT also offers free RSS
feeds, a convenient way to continue learning.
Carnegie Mellon’s free online education site is comparable
with the other school’s on this list, however, Open
Learning Initiative also covers a smaller range of topics. But for the
topics that are covered impressive, in-depth material is available.
15. Codecademy
Codecademy is a website dedicated specifically to teaching
coding. Where other coding sites follow an example/practice session workflow,
Codecademy includes a live practice window. This means you can practice coding
while still viewing the lesson material. The courses at Codecademy are well
written and easy to follow and the website is organized very nicely.
Codecademy features a centralized dashboard where you can monitor your
progress, plus organizes lessons into complete modules. This lets you learn an
entire language without needing to pick the next course manually.
Code is another website focused on coding and app writing. A
site with high quality courses, Code also features learning options for kids.
In addition to kid friendly courses, Code offers free online education classes
on a wide variety of technology topics. These classes include app writing,
robotics and Javascript. Most of the courses are also geared in a such a way
that they can be useful in a classroom setting. This makes Code a great
resource for harder to find coding topics, as well as various learning
settings.
The podcast page on the University of London website is another
great source for free education. While the courses are limited to podcasts, the
site features podcasts from it’s own campus, as well as eleven universities in
and around London. This gives learners a wide base of topics and lectures, but
still ensures in-depth material.
Similar to the University of London, the University of Oxford
features many different podcasts. Most are public lecture series or lectures
from visiting professors, with several different recordings available. The
advantage to this particular site is that podcasts are organized into series,
making it easy to subscribe to multiple lectures on one topic. Another good
site for thoroughly in-depth lectures.
For the more casual learner, the BBC offers a wide variety of
podcasts on many different topics. Most podcasts are updated weekly, and focus
on everything from finance, to sports, to current events. Through the World
Service line of podcasts, there are also many in different languages. The focus
of these podcasts are less in-depth and theory based, which may be more
accessible to the average person.
Another great destination for more general learning is TED-Ed.
From the same people that brought you the all encompassing, motivational web
series, comes a site chocked full of educational videos. Most include
impressive animation, and all are ten minutes long or less. Not only is TED-Ed
an excellent site for the curious, it also includes supplemental materials and
quizzes on the videos. This makes the site extremely useful in formal education
settings, as well as in entertaining ways to brush up on new discoveries and
topics.
21. LessonPaths
LessonPaths is another great tool for those looking for a
more usable and convenient way to access learning material. On this site, users
create link playlists of their favorite learning materials from other sites.
Users then rank these collections, making it easy to find many different high
quality, accessible sources on a given topic.
22. Memrise
Another impressive free online education site offering ease of
use and convenience is Memrise. Available both on desktop and as an app,
Memrise is a particularly powerful tool if you are studying a language. The
site encompasses many other topics as well, though some of the course material
is user generated content. Part of what makes Memrise speacial is their
integration of games into the learning materials, mixing learning with
entertainment.
The kids site for National Geographic is another site that makes
free online education applicable for younger users. For those looking for kid
friendly education, a large variety of games, puzzles, videos and photos keeps
kids interested on this site. National Geographic Kids doesn’t organize
learning into courses, making materials available by topic and medium instead.
This makes National Geographic Kids a good option for those looking for a more
casual learning environment.
Fun Brain is another good option for kids who want to learn
online, but focuses on games and fun puzzles. Particularly focused on math and
reading, Fun Brain’s game based approach can be valuable if the child in
question struggles to pay attention. Fun Brain offers rewards and challenges as
well, and is another site aimed at a casual learning experience for kids K-8.
25. Whyville
Similar to the sites for kids free online education is Whyville
a destination for preteen online learning. The site includes a variety of
social features, with a focus on learning materials geared for young teens.
Whyville also mixes in educational games, to make the site a well rounded
option for kids too old for simple games, but too young for heavy reading based
material.
0 comments:
Post a Comment