How to Get a Free Online Education

If you want to get a free online education, you will find a vast number of resources on the internet. While each of the millions of sites has something educational to offer, certain sites have gone a step further by organizing their material into course-like structures and applying some of the principles of educational design to them.

While some students are quite enthusiastic about free education on the internet, others complain that these courses do not provide the student with college credits, a diploma, or the interactive benefits of a real world learning environment.

Others counter that students who take real world courses, for which they receive academic credit and earn degrees, frequently do not learn much, while motivated knowledge seekers learn more through their own efforts.

Furthermore, although free courses do not generally provide academic credits, many schools will allow you to earn credits by passing exams, and some of the online educational resources could be quite valuable for this purpose.

Sources for Free Online Education

Perhaps the most prestigious source for free online education is provided by the University of California at Berkeley, which currently has 250 free lectures available by video. The university claims that these are offered as a part of its mission to serve the public.

http://video.google.com/ucberkeley.html

Other sources for free online education include the following:

The University of Washington offers a series of free mini courses which appear to be an introduction to it's online learning program. Courses range from Greek Mythology, to HTML, to the History of Jazz.

http://www.extension.washington.edu/openuw/

Covenant Theological Seminary offers free theological training to minimize the barriers of cost and distance to potential students. Free courses include Church History, Biblical Theology, God's World Mission, and more.

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/

Whatcom Community College has developed a web page cataloging a substantial number of free mathematics courses on the internet. Courses range from Basic Math, to Advanced Algebra, to Visual Math Learning.

http://math.whatcom.ctc.edu/content/Links.phtml?cat=3

These are just a few sources for free education on the internet. The number and quality of educational sites online is sure to grow substantially in the near future.

While most of these courses are academic in nature, rather than the career oriented courses that distance learning students seem to crave, they will surely contribute to the depth and breadth of anyone's online education.

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