We live in an amazing technological age, where most anything can be accomplished by the push of a button. As busy moms, this often works in our favor as we research fever temperatures, activities for rainy days and buy our diapers from the cheapest retailers we can find online. The Internet also boasts some of the best educational resources out there, often for free. Whether you cut your education short for any number of reasons, want to further yourself with more knowledge, or your kids need some extra help in the classroom, we’ve come up with a list of a handful of great educational resources that will help you reach your goals.
1. Khan Academy
Their tagline is “You Can Learn Anything,” and their goal is to prove that statement through free education, forever. Millions of students all over the world participate in Khan Academy, which has lessons translated into 40 languages at the moment. You can learn through your own learning dashboard, videos and practice exercises on topics ranging from learning to count to organic chemistry. Kahn Academy has partnered with reputable institutions like the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Natural History and the British Museum. Visit them at https://www.khanacademy.org.
2. TED
TED is a non-profit committed to furthering ideas in the areas of technology, entertainment and design mostly through brief presentations (usually 18 minutes or less). Their main goal is to accomplish the dissemination of great ideas throughout the world. They will inspire and challenge you to make the most of your ideas, no matter how small. You’ll find videos on hundreds of topics including economics, psychology, religion and even toilets (yes, toilets). Take a look at all they have to offer at https://www.ted.com.
3. iTunesU
iTunesU is a section in iTunes that offers free educational videos published by tons of professors and institutions. Not to be confused with the app that you can also use for educational purposes such as organization your course syllabi, iTunesU has neatly organized textbooks, podcasts and videos for easy viewing on any tablet, not just Apple devices.
4. Coursera
Coursera has partnered with the worlds top institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Johns Hopkins University and CalTech to bring tons of free online classes. You can interact with peers in the learning community, take interactive quizzes and watch educational videos on the the topic of your choice. You can learn at your own pace and complete courses to receive option verified certificates. Visit https://www.coursera.org for more information.
5. MIT Video
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is one of the most reputable schools in the United States, and they’ve compiled a vast list of videos that are put together and managed by the MIT News Office. The school’s various departments create daily videos encompassing mathematics, architecture, arts and humanities to name a few. Each day a new video is spotlighted amongst their 150 “channels”. You won’t run out of ways to learn on this site! Visit https://video.mit.edu to check out these amazing videos.
6. Open Yale Courses
If you’re making plans to head back to school in the future, then visit OpenYaleCourses. They have introductory courses all taught by Yale professors in Yale classrooms. The lectures are available in video, audio and text format and no registration is required. You will not receive course credit but can segway to Yale Summer Online if you want to experience more coursework with professors that will count towards a degree. You can choose from courses in liberal arts, humanities and social sciences among many others.
7. CK-12
This educational resource is great for students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Their main goal is to reduce the costs of textbooks in schools by offering their own FlexBooks, books that can be re-written for curriculum and historical updates. They offer tons of remedial subjects like math and biology but even more awesome- FREE SAT Prep courses! Visit https://www.ck12.org/student to check out all they have to offer.
8. Academic Earth
Academic Earth was created on the idea that everyone deserves an education. Start by selecting a degree you’d like to achieve for some easy direction to over 750 free online courses. Or you can search directly by subject such as marketing, education, dentistry and even engineering. This site links over 8,500 lectures to prestigious universities like Dartmouth, University of Notre Dame and Stanford. Visit https://academicearth.org for all the educational resources they have to offer.
9. DuoLingo
Want to learn another language? Forget paying for an expensive program and visit https://www.duolingo.com. Choose from tons of languages like Portuguese, Spanish, French, German and Swedish to name a few. DuoLingo is unique because it motivates you to learn by timed activities, activities in which you can earn points and learn from small lessons proven to help you retain information better.
10. codecademy
And finally for the techno geeks, we bring you codecademy, whose mission is to rebuild our broken education system. Learn to code for free and make yourself more employable, in addition to changing the world. Their courses include lessons in Javascript, HTML and CSS. To date, over 24 million people have joined codecademy. Are you next?
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