Top Ten Free Learning Sites
In this day and age it is possible to learn just about anything you want to on the web. The hard part nowadays is knowing where to look. To help you, we have put together a list of the top ten free online learning sites. With the sites featured in this list, it is possible to gain an understanding of just about almost anything you would want to.
10
5 Min
5 Min calls itself a videopedia. It offers thousands of videos on everyday topics. They beauty in 5 Min is that non of the videos run longer than 5 minutes, so you can sneak one in pretty easily without having to plan around it. They offer videos of a wide variety of practical topics including Parenting, Auto Repair, Spiritual Exercises, Pets, News, and Health.
9
Big Think
Big Think serves as an online multi-media forum for intellectual conversation in a wide range of fields. The Big Think founders originally described the site as YouTube for ideas. As of last year, the site features more than 1500 different video interviews.
8
Howcast
Howcast is a great website if you are searching for a short tutorial on how to do something. Howcast combines practical information alongside humor and film-making techniques such as claymation and animation. All the information is created in-house, so it has a very professional presentation.
7
MIT World
MIT World offers more than 11,000 videos in total, including thousands that are not shared on other learning sites. Some of the videos are short segments, while others are full-blown lectures. They also offer many videos on obscure subjects such as ‘Printable Robots’ and ‘Geothermal Power.’ Some of the videos are conducted by professors while others are made by students or groups of students.
6
PBS
Although, not necessarily formatted in a course structure, there is plenty of available content online at PBS. They offer many different documentaries on thousands of subjects.
[adsense]
5
Math TV
Math TV offers a variety of courses in all forms of mathematics. Another interesting feature is that many of the courses are also offered by several different instructors so that you can the one that matches your style the best. On top of that, they also offer many of their courses in Spanish as well.
4
Academic Earth
Launched in 2009, Academic Earth offers free online lectures from universities such as University of Michigan, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, Yale, and MIT. Some of the subjects they cover include astronomy, chemistry, computer science, biology, economics, history, law, entrepreneurship, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, and law. The inspiration for the website came after the founder discovered that much of the available online course content was often scattered across many different websites.
3
Coursera
Coursera combines courses from more than 16 universities. Coursera puts a heavy emphasis on computer science, engineering, and mathematics courses. The online community encourages interaction and collaboration between individuals. They also offer courses in up-and-coming domains such as sustainability and social media data minding.
2
iTunes U
www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/
The nice thing about Apple’s iTunes U is that it aggregates hundreds of courses and lectures from a variety of universities. The app for the iPhone and iPad expand upon the basic lecture capability and add features like notes and presentations to further enhance the learning experience. Additionally users are allowed to keep their own notes, create note cards, and highlight anything from provided course books.
1
Khan Academy
Established in 2006 by educator Samuel Khan with the philology of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere; Khan Academy does just that. There are currently over 3300 educational videos available on the site and many automated exercises to test your skills. Over 177 million people have watched lectures at Khan Academy. Khan Academy offers courses in many subjects ranging from Art History to Quantum Mechanics.
