I think all
education is self-education.
It doesn’t
matter if you’re sitting in a classroom or a coffee shop. Ask any lecturer;
people don’t learn anything they don’t want to learn.
I think of my
Mum who went to university in her forties. Why? Because she wanted to learn.
She was hungry for knowledge. At 90 she is still an avid reader and learner and
loves to discuss the subjects she has read about.
Hats off to
those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their
own.
If you look
at any acclaimed scholar, entrepreneur or historical figure you can think of
odds are that you will find that they are a product of continuous
self-education.
If you’re
interested in learning something new, this article is for you. I came across
these self-education resources as I was helping some colleagues prepare for
exams and wanted to share them.
• Tufts OpenCourseWare – Tufts OpenCourseWare is part of
a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course
content for everyone online. Tufts’ course offerings demonstrate the
University’s strength in the life sciences in addition to its multidisciplinary
approach, international perspective and underlying ethic of service to its
local, national and international communities.
• HowStuffWorks Science – More scientific lessons and
explanations than you could sort through in an entire year.
• Harvard Medical
School Open Courseware – The mission of the Harvard Medical School Open Courseware Initiative
is to exchange knowledge from the Harvard community of scholars to other
academic institutions, prospective students, and the general public.
• Khan Academy – Over 1200 videos lessons
covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential
equations, physics, chemistry, and biology.
• Open Yale Courses – Open Yale Courses provides
lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public
free of charge via the internet. The courses span the full range of
liberal arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical
and biological sciences.
• Johns Hopkins OpenCourseWare – The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health’s OpenCourseWare project provides access to content of
the School’s most popular courses. As challenges to the world’s health escalate
daily, the School feels a moral imperative to provide equal and open access to
information and knowledge about the obstacles to the public’s health and their
potential solutions.
• Free Science and
Video Lectures Online! – A nice collection of video lectures and lessons on science and
philosophy.
• MIT Sloan School of Management – MIT Sloan is a world-class business
school long renowned for thought leadership and the ability to successfully
partner theory and practice. This is a subsection of the larger MIT
OpenCourseWare site.
• My Own Business,
Inc. –
Offers a free online business administration course that would be beneficial to
new managers and to anyone who is interested in starting a business. This
comprehensive course is split up into 16 sessions covering topics like business
plans, accounting, marketing, insurance, e-commerce and international trade.
• Harvard Law School – Provides a number of Web casts of law lectures,
symposia, panels and conferences. A great collection of relevant information
and insights on how the law interacts with current events.
• Stanford Law – Provides open courseware via
iTunes on a variety of law subjects, including the theory of justice, mobile
content distribution, gay marriage, judicial review and privacy protection. The
tracks are available for free, but you’ll need iTunes. Put the lectures on your
iPod or iPhone and listen them anywhere.
• VideoLectures.NET
(Computer Science) – A free and open access educational video lectures repository. The
lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most
important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and
science promotional events from many fields of Science.
• Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code – Several helpful resources for
computer programming beginners.
• Google Code University – Provides sample course content
and tutorials for Computer Science (CS) students and educators on current
computing technologies and paradigms.
• Oxford
University Mathematics OpenCourseWare – Various online mathematics classes
provided free by Oxford University.
• Mango Languages – Over 100 lessons, shown to you
in PowerPoint style with interstitial quizzes, to move you through any language
without cracking a book.
• OpenLearn – The OpenLearn website gives
free access to Open University course materials. Multiple subjects are
covered.
• Wikiversity – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning
resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and
styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional
training and informal learning.
• Google Scholar – Provides a simple way to
broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across
many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court
opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online
repositories, universities and other web sites.
Please feel
free to add to this list via the comments section if you know of any sites that
were left off.
That is all –
David
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