Best of all, many high quality sites are completely free. From history to coding, excellent free education awaits on the following 25 sites.
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.
2. Khan Academy
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.
3. Open Culture Online Courses
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.
5. Academic Earth
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.
7. Alison
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.
8. iTunesU Free 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.
9. Stanford Online
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.
10. Harvard Extension
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.
11. Open Yale Courses
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.
12. UC Berkeley Class Central
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.
13. MIT OpenCourseWare
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.
14. Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
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.
16. Code
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.
17. University of London Podcasts
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.
18. University of Oxford Podcasts
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.
19. BBC Podcasts
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.
20. TED-Ed
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.
23. National Geographic Kids
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.
24. Fun Brain
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.
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