Free online courses
Where to find free online courses, plus one talk on learning faster. Josh Kaufman's TEDx idea is that 20 hours gets you started on almost any skill. Class Central lists courses with free certificates, and Rumie, FutureLearn and roadmap.sh cover shorter lessons and developer paths. 9 picks from the Bez Tytułu newsletter, in reading order.
The picks
The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything
Watch · youtube.com · Issue #13
Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA, gives a 19-minute TEDxCSU talk on learning new skills quickly, with the early hours of learning as the focus. The description says that becoming a father led him to approach learning in a new way. The talk has about 43 million views.
Free Online Courses with Free Certificates
Tool · classcentral.com · Issue #71
A 2021 Class Central list of thousands of online courses that offer free certificates or badges, from MOOC platforms, universities, companies and nonprofits. Examples include Google's 600+ courses, LinkedIn Learning's 185 courses, and Harvard CS50. Free access does not guarantee a free certificate, and most require finishing videos, quizzes or a passing score of 65 to 80%.
Rumie: Free Micro-Learning Courses (Bytes)
Tool · learn.rumie.org · Issue #35
Rumie is a learning site with an open library of micro-learning courses called Bytes, short lessons meant to teach a concept in minutes. New Bytes are published daily, covering topics such as job-search skills, interviewing, stress management, financial planning, and AI for investing. The site claims Bytes are 20% more efficient than traditional learning.
DrawingNow: Free Step-by-Step Drawing Tutorials
Tool · drawingnow.com · Issue #180
DrawingNow offers thousands of free step-by-step drawing lessons as video tutorials. Categories include cartoons, manga, animals, landscapes and abstract art, and a kids section targets learners aged 6 to 15. Each tutorial can be printed as a coloring page with explanations. The site is free to browse, and users can log in or sign up.
FutureLearn: Online Courses and Degrees
Tool · futurelearn.com · Issue #22
FutureLearn is an online learning platform with over 1,400 short courses taught by academic and industry experts, plus degrees and professional certifications such as PRINCE2 and CIPD. Courses cover business, AI, and cybersecurity. A Limited Access plan costs nothing but excludes certificates, and Unlimited plans cost $49.99 per month or $244.99 per year.
roadmap.sh
Tool · roadmap.sh · Issue #126
roadmap.sh is a community-built learning site for developers. It offers role-based roadmaps such as Frontend, Backend, DevOps and AI Engineer, plus skill roadmaps for topics like Python, React and SQL. It also includes best-practice guides, short lesson packs, interview question sets and an AI Tutor. The project is credited to the handle @nilbuild, and visitors are invited to register and join the community.
Codedex
Tool · codedex.io · Issue #147
Codedex is a coding education platform for kids and adults. It offers a fantasy-themed learning route through Python, HTML, CSS or JavaScript. Learners earn experience points to unlock new regions and collect badges at their own pace.
MERLOT: Free Teaching and Learning Resources
Tool · merlot.org · Issue #97
MERLOT is an online platform of curated learning materials, exercises and tools, run as a community of educators, learners and researchers. It lists about 110,428 resources by discipline, along with peer reviews, a Content Builder for multi-page websites and a way for members to submit their own materials. The page says joining, creating and submitting materials are free.
Five Thinking Tools From Education to Sharpen Learning
Read · nesslabs.com · 5 min · Issue #113
Anne-Laure Le Cunff's January 2021 Ness Labs article presents five thinking tools borrowed from education to build metacognition. They are Bloom's taxonomy, the DOVE and ROPE brainstorming rules, the CAMPER questions for evaluating information, the Five Whys for finding root causes and Think-Pair-Share, which moves from solo reflection to pairs to group discussion.