Learn New Skills Online

― Arthur Conan Doyle

One of the top New Year’s resolutions involves learning something new. And thanks to many new open learning initiatives it is becoming easier to find educational resources online. Here are a handful of free resources for learning new skills.

Skill Share

Anyone with knowledge to share can teach a class which means that there are tons of passionate people who are eager to share their knowledge. The Project Gallery is especially interesting. Classes are either free or relatively inexpensive.

Classes of Note:
• Photography Class: Easy DSLR
• HTML & CSS From Scratch in 30 Days

Coursera

Actual courses from accredited universities. If you’ve ever taken an online class for credit at a community college or university, this will be very familiar to you. You don’t receive college credit but all of the class are completely free.

Classes of Note:
• E-learning and Digital Cultures
• The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound, and Color

Ted Talk Playlists

Inspiration for the new year! Ted Talks recently created a user friendly playlist version of their site. Check out the Suprise me feature to find a random inspirational talk.

Playlists of Note:
• The Creative Spark
• Work Smarter

Codecademy

Easy step-by-step lessons that introduce you to the mark-up/programming language of your choice. You aren’t graded but you receive points and badges based on how many courses you have completed. They also recently introduced Groups so you can learn along with friends or like-minded coders.

Classes of Note:
• Code Year: Introductory Track
• Project CSS Buttons