n01getsout

Education is not something that you should consider finished after you leave school. I strive to learn new things all of the time, it helps me form a more complete picture of how things operate, why they work that way, and how I can make the most of it. Most of the time I turn to Google or Wikipedia, but knowing other resources can often take much of the work out of finding the information that you need.

Have a Question?

One of the best places to go if you have a question about something is HowStuffWorks.com. Here is a bit of PR from their site: “From car engines to search engines, from cell phones to stem cells, and thousands of subjects in between, HowStuffWorks has it covered. No topic is too big or too small for our expert editorial staff to unmask…or for you to understand. In addition to comprehensive articles, our helpful graphics and informative videos walk you through every topic clearly, simply and objectively.”

Did someone email you about a new computer virus that is going around? Maybe they sent you a quote from a famous person. Perhaps someone sent you an email claiming that passengers on the Titanic were watching the movie The Poseidon Adventure went it struck the iceberg, and now you want to know if it is true. Before you forward the message to all of your friends, you need to visit the Urban Legend Reference Pages and find out.

USA.gov is a web portal run by the United States government that allows you easy access to other government websites and resources. You can get information about applying for grants, getting student aid, getting help with your taxes, changing your address, renewing your drivers license…

Online Courses from Colleges

As far as I know, MIT was the first college that started putting its classes online under the OpenCourseWare name. Now there are many different colleges that have great resources for you to use.

OpenLearn from The Open University - one of the largest and perhaps most complex online programs out of any on the list, the OU is based in the United Kingdom and claims to have about 180,000 students. They also say they are ranked as one of the top five universities in the UK. OpenLearn is the free for anyone part of the university.

Carnegie Mellon - a few free online courses, their chemistry course even includes a virtual lab written in Java.

Johns Hopkins - OpenCourseWare materials focused on public health.

Other Sources of Educational Material

Wikiversity - from the creators of Wikipedia. All content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, meaning that you can copy, modify, and redistribute the content, so long as you grant the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors. This makes Wikiversity a great resource for teachers and trainers.

lifehacker.com has a great list of free resources and offers a few tricks on how to find more.

Connexions provides an environment where authors can collaborate with others to create educational modules that are then combined together to create whole courses. Everything is licensed under the Creative Commons for free use.

Someone has also created a huge list of online education videos.