These are 20 of the best free online learning sites I have come across on the net. The listing is in no particular order.
Findtutorials.com
One of the best tutorial / learning resources I have come across.
FindTutorials.com is a Web index and search engine that searches for tutorials
and online courses on the web. It Features a huge categorized database ( 700
categories, about 4000 tutorials) FindTutorials.com allows you to search for
free tutorials on practically any subject, ranging from photography to
gardening to psychology. The site claims to guide you directly to written,
certified tutorials carefully selected from all over the Web.
Beginners.co.uk
Beginners.co.uk provides a mixture of free and paid services. As the name
suggests, a lot of the tutorials are focussed on newcomers in the IT field. The
site features more than 300 free online tutorials on various topics like HTML,
JAVA, .NET, Javascript, Flash, PHP, SQL, C++, C#, VB, ASP and many more
categories. The site also features links to various other free tech tutorials
sites. The paid section of the site includes more than 250 online training
courses for an annual membership fee.
Devcentral
This site is for hard-core techies and IT professionals. The recently revamped
site contains a
number of free articles, tutorials and downloads. Much of the stuff here is in
PDF format. So you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view it. Some of the
sections of the site need you to register (registration is free). Some of the
categories covered in the site include C, C++,C# Win32, Java, VB, DCOM,
Networking, Perl, XML,etc.
Ehow.com
Ehow is meant to help people to do a
variety of real-world activities. It claims to be the most comprehensive
source of information on how to do things, offering thousands of specific
project instructions. With 14 categories featuring 120 subcategories, eHow
offers staff-written, reviewed and edited solutions. Sample a few categories:
Automotive, Careers/Education, Computers, Relationships, Dating, (Yes, that's
right! A tutorial on dating!) marriage, Finance/Business, Health,
Hobbies/Games ,Crafts, Fashion, Pets, Travel and more
Lifelonglearning
This is an award winning website in its category. A number of study guides in
information technology are featured for free online viewing. The site claims
that over 10 million people have accessed these guides in the past 5 years and
over 350 leading universities and colleges around the world have used these
guides. Hmmnn... tall claims...Find out for yourself if the site lives up to
them.
Techtutorials.com
As the name suggests, another site for tech geeks. Its yet another directory of
free computer tutorials and whitepapers. The directory currently contains
around 1700 free tutorials on subjects like computer hardware, databases,
networking, UNIX, Linux, Programming, etc. This site comes from the makers of
mcmcse.com which features resources to help people preparing for Microsoft's
MCSE examination.
Wannalearn.com
Gives a directory listing of free tutorials available on various topics (tech
as well as non-tech related). Yeah, so what's new? Well..., this one only
brings you content that is entirely free, and does not require any form of user
registration.
It features sites with predominantly or exclusively original content.
Definitely worth a look.
Worldwidelearn.com
Provides e-learning opportunities for a variety of careers. It acts as a
gateway to courses, tutorials, classes, degrees and workshops from around the
world that are offered entirely online and available to adult learners
worldwide. Not all are free though.)
This site offers online courses in as many as 40 varied subject topics from
copy writing, e-commerce, accounting to Linux training, personal development,
photography and more. The site also offers online MBA programs, degree programs
and college courses.
Howstuffworks.com
HowStuffWorks.com is an amazing, award-winning online destination for anyone
who wants to know how anything works. If you have an inquisitive mind and are
always looking for answers on how anything works the way it does, then this is
the site for you. Categories include Computers & Internet, Engines &
Automotive, Electronics & Telecom, Science & Technology, Aviation & Transport,
Body & Health, Living & Entertainment, Around the House, Machines,etc. Aimless
clicking around the site brought me to a page on how Lockpicking works! Well, I
guess that could come in use someday...
Free-ed.net
Free-Ed is all about free education on the Internet. It's a simple as that--no
tuition payments and no hidden charges.
They have assembled links to the best course notes, outlines, tutorials,
courses and e-texts on the net. Free-Ed provides an online, virtual university
where users from around the world can study, take courses, and participate in
community activities at no cost. Complete courses and tutorials are available
for more than 120 different vocational and academic disciplines. The course
catalog here is divided into the General course catalog and the Information
Technology (IT) course catalog. You don't even have to sign up or register for
a Free-Ed course.
Intelinfo.com
You can easily spend hours exploring Intelinfo, which claims to be One of the
very best Computer Education and Training Gateways on the Web Today. Whether
you're going for technical certification or teaching yourself programming, web
design, or networking, here you will find plenty of web resources. Get Free
Knowledge, Information, References, and Resources about computers by visiting
the many Free Computer, Programming and IT Training Courses, Tutorials, Books,
Training Guides, Tips, Articles, and How-Tos. If you're a student learning
computer programming or an IT professional, this site is for you. If you do
visit the site, I recommend you subscribe to their monthly newsletter, which
gives a lot of info on new free computer training and education sites which
they find and make available on the website. Its real quality stuff.
Learn2.com
Offers e-learning solutions for individuals as well as corporates. The site
offers free as well as subscription based courses that you can have streamed
onto your computer for use at your own convenience.. The courses offered
include Office 2000, certification courses for Linux and Microsoft certified
courses. Nothing great about this site except that it offers a few free
tutorials.
TheTutorial.com
Yet another tech related site featuring free tutorials on C, PHP, Delphi,
Flash, DHTML, Javascript, Pascal, Perl. It also offers animations and cliparts
if you are planning to build your own site. There is also a tips and tricks
section on Javacript and HTML.
FindTutorials.com
This Australian site provides hundreds of tutorials on a wide variety of
topics. The site showcases a mixture of IT-related and general tutorials. From
Accounting, American football, Chemistry, Dental Health and the like to
Dreamveaver, ASP, .NET, CGI, this site claims to have it all. Registration is
free and members can even request a tutorial any topic if they don't find it on
the site.
Webmonkey
This site comes from the stable of the well-known search engine Lycos.
Webmonkey is a boon for web developers. Whether you are just starting out to
build your own site or are a professional webmaster, you just cannot give this
site a miss. With hundreds of articles across categories like Web Authoring,
Design, Multimedia, E-business, Programming, etc, Webmonkey makes other sites
in this category look like chiken shit, oops!, I mean monkey poop.
Bottom line- Even if you are only remotely interested in IT or the internet,
you won't be disappointed if you visit this site.
Autodidact
Autodidact is a free laering portal. It offers a category-wise listing of the
best of the Web for e-learning courses and studies in education, employee
training, development, performance improvement and fun. Autodidact brings you
resources in online education, email training, Web Based Training, online
learning, teleclass training, chat room training, and more. Last I checked,
they had more than 4000 free tutorials. I even tried to access a couple of
courses on Astronomy from the listing on its main page, but was greeted with a
'Page not found' message. Maybe you'll have better luck.
Learnfree.com
This site is unique in the sense that it offers free
video-enhanced
instructions on various topics ranging from pets to parenting, golf to
gardening, health and medicine to beauty and fashion. They have a catalog of
more than 250 instructional and educational websites on most of the topics
under the sun and each contains several to dozens of pages of text and pictures
- to which are added streaming video clips. If you have a broadband internet
connection, you
may enjoy the site better. My 56kbps modem just choked with one video clip.
Online Sapiens
This link takes you to a page quite similar to the present page. The site
offers a listing of many free online courses available on the net. You can even
subscribe to their Online Courses newsletter which features other free online
education sites and other sources of university, college and continuing
education courses.
Goodwill Global Learning
GCF Global Learning is administered by Goodwill Industries, a not-for-profit organization. They provide free, web-based career and computer training for beginning computer users. The curriculum is web accessible and features basic language, screen-shots, and interactive exercises.
When you become a member of the GCF Global Learning community (membership is free), you can take free self-paced classes or free instructor-led classes.
Current classes include How to be a Distance Learner, Introduction to the Internet, Introduction to Computers, Introduction to Microsoft Office, Introduction to Windows, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Access, and Applied Skills (Career Development).
The Creativity Portal
The Creativity Portal helps you to explore various activities related to arts, crafts, music, and writing. The CP is a specialty directory of sites that have free instructional information (tips, tutorials, articles, projects, how-to's, etc) to help you learn about the topic that interests you the most. If you have the desire to learn photography, writing, fine arts, graphic design, music making, origami, balloon twisting, and a whole lot of other things, then this is the place for you to begin your learning adventure. I was particularly impressed by the section on music featuring lessons on guitar, flutes. drums, banjo,etc.