Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Free Online Classes

If youҀre new to learning through the internet, want to test out a class, need to brush up on some skills for your credit classes, or just want to learn a few new facts, youҀll want to check out one of the many free courses available online. Although these courses donҀt provide college credit, they do give students a lot of information and can be a valuable supplement to your regular studies. There are two main types of online courses: independent courses that are made exclusively for the internet and open courseware classes that are designed for actual classrooms.

Independent Courses

Independent courses are made especially for e-learners. From poetry to financial planning, there's something out there for everyone.

About.com offers a number of online courses available by email. Readers can select the courses they want and learn through course materials sent in the form of a newsletter. There are many subjects available; just search for your favorite topics on the About site. The Busy Cooks guide, for example, has a number of email courses about how to bake and the Credit Management guide offers a course entitled Rapid Debt Reduction. Just sign up for the classes you want, and theyҀll show up in your inbox.

Brigham Young University has a number of online courses offered for credit to paying students, but they also offer free classes open to the general public. Although these classes do not offer interaction between peers, they have a sensible set up and often provide useful information. One of the most common subjects offered is genealogy; BYU has quite a few courses specialized to help genealogists locate their personal family information. Also available are a number of religious courses.

Open Courseware

Open courseware programs are designed to give students around the world access to course materials actually used in university classrooms. Participating colleges post syllabi, assignments, calendars, lecture notes, readings, and other materials online making it easy for self-learners to study the topic on their own terms. Open courseware programs do not require registration or charge tuition. However, they also do not award credits or allow for interaction with a professor.

Want to take an MIT course for free? MITҀs open courseware program offers students around the world access to materials and assignments used in actual classrooms. More than 1,000 courses are currently available.

Tufts University also offers a handful of quality open courseware classes as does Utah State University and John Hopkins University.

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