Here are some places on the Web where you can learn for free.
First, you might want to check out our databases. You can learn all kinds of things like how to repair your car, how to complete home improvement projects and repairs, and how to speak another language. You can even learn a new craft or hobby or study for a standardized test such as the GED, the ASVAB, firefighter, nursing, or real estate exams.
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The Open CourseWare Consortium is a worldwide community of hundreds of universities and associated organizations committed to advancing OpenCourseWare and assessing its impact on global education. Click here to view a list of links to websites of consortium members. Scroll down the page until you find sites in a language you understand. You can take courses from around the world, for free!
The Online Education Database has a great list of free online courses that includes a lot of the consortium members’ sites.
Here are some sites in the U.S. of institutions which are members of the Open CourseWare Consortium:
MIT offers more than 2000 courses for free online.
Learning Space, a project of the UK Open University, offers more than 600 free online courses, for learners from beginning to advanced levels.
Tufts Open Courseware offers material from Tufts University programs.
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RSA Animate videos are a great way to introduce yourself to new ideas, as is the TED site with “ideas worth spreading”.
N55 has so many amazing ideas! All the manuals are available for free.
RefSeek has links to lots of sites where you can learn for free.
The Forum Network is a project of NPR and PBS that offers free video lectures.
LitLovers has short courses on topics such as reading for meaning, point of view, symbolism and irony.
Take a free Expressive Drawing course from AARP.
Learn about digital photography at the Digital Photography School.
Learn how to do portraits in pencil here.
Goodwill Community Foundation International has free online classes to help you learn computer skills, job skills, reading and math. Click here to see a list of topics. The courses are also available in Spanish.
The National Center for Home Preservation offers a free self-study course in Preserving Food at Home.
Utah State University Extension has online courses on a variety of topics, from vegetable gardening to raising cattle in drought conditions.
If you want to learn math or science, the Khan Academy is a veritable gold mine of information. They feature a library of over 2,400 videos plus 150 practice exercises.
The Annenberg Learner provides courses that are geared toward classroom teachers, but many of them are interesting for adult learners as well. To view them online, click through to the course material and then look for the VoD icon. The Interactives portion of the site has lots of great material that the learner can . . . well . . . interact with.
Learn all about management of both for profit and nonprofit corporations with the Free Nonprofit Micro-eMBA and the Free Management Library.
About U is a collection of free online courses from about.com. You can sign up to have the course information delivered to you via email, or you can just click on the link provided for each topic and then click on the relevant tab.
Here is a list of links to free language lessons, mostly available through iTunes.
BBC Languages has links to free courses for learning French, Spanish, German, Italian, and many other languages–including Welsh!
Here is a free online course for learning Sahaja Meditation.
Want to learn how to become a drummer? Try this site.
To learn about computer programming, why not try Google Code University?
Click here to explore Harvard’s free Open Learning video courses.
Open UW is the University of Washington’s free course material.
Academic Earth: Online courses from the world’s top scholars.
You Tube’s education channel has lots of videos from universities that participate in the Open CourseWare project. And of course you can learn zillions of other things from videos on the regular You Tube channel.
Of course, you can always learn from your friends and neighbors, too!
