Wisdom and the Power of Gratitude
The 37 Best Websites to Learn Something New
Forget overpriced schools, long days in a crowded classroom, and pitifully poor results. These websites and apps cover myriads of science, art, and technology topics. They will teach you practically anything, from making hummus to building apps in node.js, most of them for free. There is absolutely no excuse for you not to master a new skill, expand your knowledge, or eventually boost your career. You can learn interactively at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home. It’s hard to imagine how much easier it can possibly be.
With that in mind, here are my top five picks.
The first one listed is the best because it's the one I personally use. You can find a comprehensive description of JavaScript on the Create Your Own Code website. JavaScript has become by far my favorite programming language and will probably become your favorite as well. (If you don't like it, just keep reading and you'll eventually find something you do.)
There are many audio lectures available online for free. The most popular ones are videos from Khan Academy . However, if you want something more detailed there's a huge variety of lectures on MIT OpenCourseWare . These are all available for free online. If you want to learn something really interesting then watch a lecture on anything from the Stanford Engineering Everywhere Program . If you just want to learn even more then you should go on O'Reilly Media's Safari books program , which offers an enormous amount of introductory and advanced material for free.
Some people like having more interactive courses, so they can have a structured and step-by-step learning experience. For that, Udacity is the way to go. They offer free mini-courses in a lot of interesting topics. A nice feature is that you can get certificates of completion if you finish all the material. You don't have to pay anything to enroll in any of their courses.
Similarly, Coursera offers a multitude of popular courses for free online. This is great because it's easy to dip your toe into a class and see if it's worth investing more time on it.
If you're interested in how computers work then try Stanford's Computer Science 109 . If you want to learn more about how the Internet works then MIT OpenCourseWare also has an excellent course about that: 6.00SC Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Java .
You can learn more about the many offerings of MIT on their OpenCourseWare website and also on their OpenCourseWare blog .
For an excellent introduction to philosophy try Yale University's Open Yale courses . Their philosophy section is especially interesting.
There are a couple of very interesting courses from Berkeley's Webcast courseware. Their webcasts are videos of them teaching their classes in person at Berkeley, which is quite unique and really exciting. They also have MOOC sections with material they've posted online, which is quite good as well.
I'm a huge fan of Python and R. If you're into analytics, data science, and statistics, then I'm positive these two programming languages will become your favorites as well.
There's a huge variety of books out there on both Python and R. They are all listed on the R-Bloggers and PythonBooks websites. (PythonBooks is blocked where I am at the moment but if it's not blocked for you then check it out.) For a comprehensive review of Python go to DynamicCodeAnalysis . For an excellent review of the new features in the latest version of R go to DZone .
There are so many things to learn that I really don't know where to begin. If you want to know how to use Google, then go to Google's tutorial website . If you want to learn how to use firefox then I recommend Mozilla's website . If you want to find out about the Khan Academy website and resources then read this article on Mashable . For some great projects, check out Tuts+ and GitHub .
If you like games then try Ludum Dare , a game development challenge.
There is so much that can be done with a computer. Do yourself a favor and try these websites out. You have nothing to lose, except maybe a little time.
(I gathered a lot of the material in this article from the book I'm currently writing. If you want to be notified when it's available, just drop me an email.)
Title: Wisdom and the Power of Gratitude
Published by: The Author
Genre: Articles
Summary: There are many audio lectures available online for free. The most popular ones are videos from Khan Academy . However, if you want something more detailed there's a huge variety of lectures on MIT OpenCourseWare . These are all available for free online. If you want to learn something really interesting then watch a lecture on anything from the Stanford Engineering Everywhere Program . If you just want to learn even more then you should go on O'Reilly Media's Safari books program , which offers an enormous amount of introductory and advanced material for free.
*All the links will be valid as of the time the article was published (3:48 PM, 9/27/2013)
For a comprehensive review of JavaScript, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=i1-4d8CSP2g
Do you know what it means to have fun? How about using your computer? These free online guides will teach you everything that you need to know.
*All the links will be valid as of the time the article was published (3:48 PM, 9/27/2013)
I highly recommend checking out this article and website before you continue. It's a great way to avoid experiencing any harm.
*All the links will be valid as of the time the article was published (3:48 PM, 9/27/2013)
Learn a new skill online! These free courses teach everything from how to use Photoshop to how to make movies. There are tons of courses available on all kinds of subjects.
Conclusion
We hope that you found some of these links useful. We'll be back with another installment in this series soon! In the meantime, feel free to browse through the other parts of this series:
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