South Africa went through a lot of turmoil with the #feesmustfall movement, then COVID happened! This has a detrimental effect on both the education system, and most importantly the users thereof. Whether you’re five or ninety five, the internet has a lot to offer. The sites below are a great opportunity for new and existing entrants into the education market. So if you cant afford to pay for the cost of studying, don’t have the ability to get to a campus, then this may be your easiest way to create an opportunity for your future career. All you need is a stable connection, check out your options here.
When the topic is education, the resources on the internet are endless, we have listed the best of all, many high quality sites which are completely free. Starting from coding to history, there are excellent free online education on our these 25 recommended sites.
1.#FeesMustFall: Learn free on Khan Academy
Khan Acadamy has partnered 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. Khan Academy is also incredibly useable, which may make it easier to keep learning goals.
2. Coursera
Coursera is a site that partners with various universities and organizations around the world. This allows it to bring 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.
3. Open Culture Online Courses
Are you struggling to find exactly the material you are looking for? Try Open Culture’s listing of free online education courses. The page highlights over a 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 also features top rated courses from England, Australia, Wales and many state universities around the United States. This is a very helpful resource for finding many courses in one area of study.
4. Lifehack Fast Track Class
Lifehack believes in skills that multiply your time, energy and overall quality of life.
In this rapid changing world, traditional education skills just don’t cut it anymore. You can’t afford to take years learning a skill you’ll never really practice. Besides offering some paid courses that will help you become a better self, it offers a list of free courses which aim to train some of the Core Life Multipliers including:
- how to learn faster Spark Your Learning Genius
- how to stay motivated Activate Your Motivation
- how to stop procrastinating to sharpen your focus No More Procrastination
These are cross functional skills that work across many aspects of life.
5. Udemy
Udemy’s free courses are similar in concept to Coursera’s but additionally allows users to build custom courses from lessons. Udemy works with many top professors and schools, the site mixes the customizable platform of other sites with a heavy emphasis on top quality content. This site mixes free and paid content at affordable rates.
6. Academic Earth
Another site with courses from many different schools is Academic Earth. Much like the sites above, Academic Earth brings together top notch courses from many different sources, and focuses on offering a wide variety of subjects.
7. edX
This is an amazing option, they also have a local partnership with Wits University and it provides free online education through the edX platform. Also bringing together courses from many different schools, the site has impressive, quality information for everyone. edX covers a great range of topics.
8.#FeesMustFall: Try 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.
It’s a great option if users need certification for their learning as Alison also offers school curriculum courses.
9. iTunesU Free Courses
Apple does it again. 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.
10.#FeesMustFall: Try 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.
11.#FeesMustFall: Check out 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14.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.
15. 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.
16. Codecademy
Codecademy is a site 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.
17. 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.
18. 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 its 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. 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 special is their integration of games into the learning materials, mixing learning with entertainment.
24. 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.
25. 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.
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