Free online learning

learning online

Be it through the Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) that make all the hype nowadays, hard core technical skills or more relaxed “on-the-go” learning, here is a little overview of some of the best options to learn on your own online, depending on your style and your needs, for free.

Ad-hoc learning

Of course, we cannot miss here to start by stating the obvious: you can learn tons of things on Wikipedia. The free online encyclopedia is now by far the largest encyclopedia available, and will provide good answers, often very complete, in many languages. It is obviously most complete in English with millions of articles covering all types of information, skills, news, etc, but it also includes a lot of references in the sometimes less thorough available resources in the less common languages of ASEAN countries.

Aside from being just a reference to look up for when needed, Wikipedia can also be used as a real learning tool where you can easily click your way to related and interesting connected articles, depending on your learning appetite. If you start using it to learn, it can quickly become a very easy go-to resource to accumulate countless bits of general culture.

Video tutorials and conference

Another kind of learning experience can be encountered on the video sharing plateforms like Youtube or Vimeo, which host a large amount of tutorials, conferences and how-to videos for you to learn what you need. Just type in your desired keywords in the main search and you will be provided with a list of videos that present the benefit of being a quite laid-back and easily digestible way to quench your thirst for knowledge.

There are also several other online platforms which are dedicated to teaching and presenting specific topics, new ideas and points of view like TED, which we particularly appreciate at ASEAN UP for the great quality of the speakers, contents originality and novelty, and general focus on professional and societal topics.

Massive Online Open Courses

A new development to education following the spread of computers and the omnipresence of Internet, the trendy Massive Online Open Courses – MOOC – come as real revolution of learning. Anybody who speaks English can now engage in the world’s most recognized courses provided by the likes of the MIT, Harvard or Princeton either directly or through specialized websites like the free Khan Acadmy and Coursera that gather and host thousand of courses, tutored or self-learning programs, with videos and material to dispense knowledge and tools for practicing and checking your production an progress. Some of these will allow you to obtain a certification or even a real degree.

Note that some other websites specialize in one certain skill providing a more appropriate platform dedicated to its learning, such as Code Academy which will allow you to learn coding and try it live.

And you, what do you learn? How do you prefer learning, relaxed as needed or hard-core skills with a certification at the end? What is your favorite platform for learning?

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