Free Online Courses

Pj! · 18-08-2009 1:27am #1

Hi. Unemployed and recently just browsing around looking for free courses, not to gain any certificate, more to train the brain/use my unemployed time wisely.

Am entitled to FAS eCollege courses so have signed up there.

Found a great Excel tutorial for free which is something I always was interested in learning more about. It originates from Lynda.com which seems a great site. They charge, but I 'stumbled' across this for free so giving it a bash.

Are there any good sites or courses out there people know of? Of any subject really. Someone might be interested.

hotspur · 20-08-2009 11:04pm

Some of the top universities in America have committed to providing free course material online. One is MIT, some great stuff there, including video and audio of lectures:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

tedcreed · 21-08-2009 2:13pm

Not sure what part of the country you are from but there is a part-funded management/entpreneurial skills training program available in September in Carlow.

Pj! · 26-08-2009 12:01pm

Great find hotspur! That should keep me busy for a bit.

Don't know if I could get to that course tedcreed, thanks though!

_Whimsical_ · 26-08-2009 4:32pm

That MIT course site looks great hotspur.

These sites don't really provide courses but they're good if your interested in learning in general.www.ted.com provides some very interesting lectures by highly respected academics in their field.
www.w3schools.com has lots of good tutorials for learning about web developing,designing, building etc.
If you find anymore let us know.

Pj! · 30-08-2009 7:12pm

chilly wrote: »

That MIT course site looks great hotspur.

These sites don't really provide courses but they're good if your interested in learning in general.www.ted.com provides some very interesting lectures by highly respected academics in their field.
www.w3schools.com has lots of good tutorials for learning about web developing,designing, building etc.
If you find anymore let us know.

Loving that ted.com chilly.
Some great lectures.

dory · 06-09-2009 9:46pm

Are you interested in languages at all?
I'm using livemocha.com at the moment for learning Russian. It's a bit random, started off with things like 'A fat girl' instead of the usual 'my name is'.
Also, it expects you to know the alphabet so many pick Spanish/French etc. I found another site (russianlessons.net) to learn the alphabet from.

MAybe someone will be interested in it!

kagni · 07-09-2009 10:57am

Open University offer a lot of free course units through the Open Learn site. I did one of these before deciding to do a full Open University course. The quality of the free material is excellent, well worth a look - http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

Pj! · 08-09-2009 1:33am

Some really great sites here lads that I had no idea existed.
That Open Learn site is great.

A mod should form a list and sticky it I think, and leave it open to be added to.

Bizzi Lizzy · 16-09-2009 3:36pm

If it's Excel, Word, Powerpoint or Access there is a great site here http://alison.com/ I used it when I was doing my ECDL and I thought it was better than the one FAS made us use

dory · 15-10-2009 2:15pm

I would like to second the idea there that this should be amde a sticky. I still come back here sometimes to find the addresses of those free courses. Some of them are great!

WexCan · 15-10-2009 2:32pm

Go on then.

Durkheim · 19-01-2010 8:55pm

Some of these are fantastic.
Sofia
About U
BBC
Berklee Shares
Connexions
Covenant Worldwide
Fathom
Suite 101 U
MERLOT
OER Commons
GCF Learn Free

Desert Rose · 06-02-2010 10:44pm

I found this amazing website with loads of links to free tutorials!!

http://librarysupportstaff.com/ed4you.html#Online%20Tutorial

I haven't tried any of them yet (I just found them) but they seem interesting!

I have found most of the things posted on this thread very helpful too, so thank you!

Desert Rose · 07-02-2010 1:52pm

Today, I checked out most of the "free" tutorial links at the website I suggested and they aren't all free as they claim to be..

Sorry about that..

Pablo_ · 17-02-2010 6:12pm

I am doing the Excel course (badly needed) on the allyson site recommended and just looking at all the open learning options, might do a few maths tutorials to keep the brain ticking over ... I am back in part-time college and hoping this excel will get me up to speed as it seems to be used alot. thanks for the links, I'll post again after a few courses to see how it is going.

Desert Rose · 17-02-2010 10:10pm

Today I came across this site too
http://www.openculture.com/2007/07/freeonlinecourses.html

I don't check all the courses I post here so don't know how good they are but if anyone has time to check a few of them out it would be lovely to get feedback.

Pablo you mentioned you might do some math tutorials so you might find something here
http://www.openculture.com/math_free_courses
...but again I don't know if they are good or not.

Yale university has some free online courses too and I am currently doing the introduction to psychology one which I found quite good.

Here is the link
http://oyc.yale.edu/

Bugnug · 28-03-2010 10:33am

Hi,

I am doing part time study in DBS. Can somebody recommend some free online sites for basic accounting and also some decent books.

Thanks.

Vinoveritas · 07-05-2010 5:23pm

Forky wrote: »

Hi. Unemployed and recently just browsing around looking for free courses, not to gain any certificate, more to train the brain/use my unemployed time wisely........are there any good sites or courses out there people know of? Of any subject really. Someone might be interested.

By now you have probably found a course that suits you too a "T". However, for anybody else who is recently unemployed I would suggest taking the following steps in order to access training and/or educational opportunities. Our VECs are amongst one of the best kept secrets in the country, and yet they are linked into training programmes throughout the length and breadth of the country. Many programmes are offered in partnership with other statutory agencies i.e. FAS.

My advice for what it is worth is to:

1. Contact your local Vocational Educational Committee (VEC) service. (Link to all 33 VECs in country can be found here: http://www.ivea.ie/)

2. Organise a meeting with an Adult Guidance Counsellor http://www.ncge.ie/adult_details.htm

He/she will outline all your available options with regard to accessing education/training opportunities within your own area (and further afield).

To the best of my knowledge this service is offered completely free of charge (however you should query this when you phone to make an appointment).

They will help you explore a whole range of full-time and/or part-time programmes (if unemployed - many of these are on offer free of charge).

They can also offer support with CV preparation; interview skills and more.

I hope the above is helpful.

Cheers

dory · 14-05-2010 10:26am

I found a few free media training courses on BBC's website
http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourses.asp

cable842 · 02-06-2010 8:04am

cheers for the m i t link. if I did do one of the m i t course are the recognized over here in ireland land of drink and magic ?

kagni · 02-06-2010 10:29pm

cable842 wrote: »

cheers for the m i t link. if I did do one of the m i t course are the recognized over here in ireland land of drink and magic ?

You won't get a qualification unless you are enrolled on a course.
The MIT links are to some course materials, you can study them but there is no free qualification available.

OnAndUp · 16-01-2011 1:27am

I work as a teacher, and got an email from www.alison.com during week, they now have 200 online courses in every possible subject, they're based in Galway. Got another email saying they got an award from UNESCO for providing free courses wow! am working through the Health and Safety ones and they are good!

Where can I find out about more free stuff like this?

quintain · 19-01-2011 2:51pm

www.khanacademy.org

amz5 · 24-01-2011 1:30am

kagni wrote: »

Open University offer a lot of free course units through the Open Learn site. I did one of these before deciding to do a full Open University course. The quality of the free material is excellent, well worth a look - http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

Do you get a certificate or anything to say that you've completed one of these courses. There seems to be a huge selection. I've paid for courses with the OU, and they're very highly regarded, so I'd imagine if you got something that said you'd completed a course with them, it would look good on a CV.

kagni · 26-01-2011 1:04pm

amz5 wrote: »

Do you get a certificate or anything to say that you've completed one of these courses. There seems to be a huge selection. I've paid for courses with the OU, and they're very highly regarded, so I'd imagine if you got something that said you'd completed a course with them, it would look good on a CV.

I don't think there is any certificate to say you have completed a course. I don't believe there are any complete courses on OpenLearn anyway, just material taken from some of the course modules they offer.

garr23 · 26-02-2011 2:42am

OnAndUp wrote: »

I work as a teacher, and got an email from www.alison.com during week, they now have 200 online courses in every possible subject, they're based in Galway. Got another email saying they got an award from UNESCO for providing free courses wow! am working through the Health and Safety ones and they are good!

Where can I find out about more free stuff like this?

This site looks great, thanks for posting.

Vinoveritas · 26-02-2011 9:01pm

garr23 wrote: »

This site looks great, thanks for posting.

Before taking part in any courses (free or otherwise) - you really need to check with the course provider if their certification is recognised by the National Qualifications Authority (NQAI) and if so where it is placed on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ). If it not placed on the NFQ than it will not be recognised by employers and/or other education providers. More on the NFQ can be found at www.NQAI.ie

Cheers

Annmac16 · 04-03-2011 7:20pm

I'm a great fan of online courses - FAS will fund certain courses if they are apporved and you're unemployed - it's worth having a chat with them , a friend of mine who is an enemployed teacher (those bloody cutbacks!) got her fees paid by FAS, she recently completed an online post grad degree course with ICEP Europe so it's worth a try!

Annemac16

confuseddotcom · 20-03-2011 2:25am

Possibly a rather weird request, but am looking for some form of free online programme/software to practise dictaphone typing. I've downloaded a few from searches, but they're only Trials, and they don't work properly for some reason, and ya need 3or4 other bitsnbobs for them to work right etc etc. .....

I know traditionally with dicta-typing you have yer machine/recorder and pedal and stuff, but I know some places like hospitals transfer the voice recordings needing to be typed over the net, play them back and type them out and that's how it rolls lol. So am looking for something along that line to just get in some practice anyway. I guess I could do something quick-fix and record something myself to work with, but obviously would prefer something business-like and official with various voice accents and varying voice speeds. So if any-one can point me in the direction of something free, not-needing any extra bits that's easily accessible and works straight off I would much appreciate it. Cheers!

karl tyrrell · 08-04-2011 9:18pm

Any free horticulture online courses ?

HigsBoson · 07-06-2011 3:00pm

There's 150 free Open University places available under the springboard initative. I just got a free place on "TU100 My Digital Life". You have to have been unemployed for 6 months before the course start date. There available on bluebrick.ie.

Kaluza · 08-06-2011 1:28pm

HigsBoson wrote: »

There's 150 free Open University places available under the springboard initative. I just got a free place on "TU100 My Digital Life". You have to have been unemployed for 6 months before the course start date. There available on bluebrick.ie.

Great find!

I too got a place. Will be doing Discovering Mathematics (MU123)

Big thanks

BooBear123 · 02-07-2011 9:34pm

This is a brilliant thread! I have started learning Spanish now thanks to one of the links suggested by a fellow boardsie! Thank you!

Just wondering does anyone have a link to a free sociology course? I have also started the Open Yale Introduction to Pyschology course, a fantastic lecturer!

Again, great thread!

AndywK · 12-07-2011 6:04pm

Great thread, thanks for this.
The Russian course really took my eye.
Any more suggestions, keep em coming.
I jus became unemployed and don't have the money for college nor do I qualify for a grant(wonderful eh) so these are really making a difference.
Thanks again

mel123 · 23-08-2011 1:18pm

Hi all, I'm looking for a good free site to learn Spanish, any recommendations???

SeaFields · 25-08-2012 10:08pm

coursesra.org

Really impressed with the range of topics available. Some work colleagues have completed courses and were all very keen on the structure and materials.

I have just signed up for one myself which is starting soon so will try to update when i get going.

djreferee · 30-08-2012 1:56pm

Thanks for www.alison.com. Looks very good, will try a course out.

SeaFields · 25-09-2012 1:12pm

SeaFields wrote: »

I have just signed up for one myself which is starting soon so will try to update when i get going.

Have been at this course for 3 weeks now or thereabouts. I signed up for "An introduction to mathematical thinking". So far everything about the course is very good. I get regular emails about new course work or assignments having been put up on the website. My course portal on the main website is very good with all the resources I need to complete the course and the video lectures are of a very clear quality.

While i have not done a free distant learning course before, so have nothing to gauge it against, the quality of this site seems very good and I would urge others to certainly have a look into the topics they offer.

uck51js9zml2yt · 29-09-2012 6:22pm

for language study people should try livemocha.com
its free with other native speakers who are also learning s language correcting your submissions.

feelgoodinc27 · 30-09-2012 9:58pm

www.edx.org/courses has a few courses from MIT, Berkley and Harvard:

3.091x: Introduction to Solid State Chemistry
CS50x: Introduction to Computer Science I
CS169.1x: Software as a Service
6.002x: Circuits and Electronics
PH207x: Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health
CS188.1x: Artificial Intelligence
6.00x: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming

A free (for now) certificate of completion from the relevant university will be issued for passing a course.

Sulla Felix · 20-10-2012 10:01pm

Coursera.org has a bunch of free courses from good universities in lots of different areas.

https://www.coursera.org/courses

SpatialPlanning · 25-10-2012 2:22am

I'll throw my hat in here, too, and say coursera.org.

I am enrolled in 2 of their courses at the moment and I must say that they are excellent. You can sign up as far in advance as you like and you can opt out at any point. Courses last between 4 and 12 weeks and if you successfully complete it you get a certificate.

Vinoveritas · 30-10-2012 10:40pm

I recently came across this site - looks really good:
https://www.coursera.org/

You can check out a clip on TED giving information re same:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FvJ6jMGHU

The only minus is that the credits are not recognised in Ireland. But it strikes me as an excellent way to sample lots of interesting subjects.

SpatialPlanning · 31-10-2012 12:40am

Are there any free online courses where the credits are recognised??

Moocifer · 17-01-2013 8:44pm

Doing courses with both Alison (2 courses) and Udacity (1 course) and I find both of them excellent.

maringo · 17-01-2013 9:08pm

confuseddotcom wrote: »

Possibly a rather weird request, but am looking for some form of free online programme/software to practise dictaphone typing. I've downloaded a few from searches, but they're only Trials, and they don't work properly for some reason, and ya need 3or4 other bitsnbobs for them to work right etc etc. .....

I know traditionally with dicta-typing you have yer machine/recorder and pedal and stuff, but I know some places like hospitals transfer the voice recordings needing to be typed over the net, play them back and type them out and that's how it rolls lol. So am looking for something along that line to just get in some practice anyway. I guess I could do something quick-fix and record something myself to work with, but obviously would prefer something business-like and official with various voice accents and varying voice speeds. So if any-one can point me in the direction of something free, not-needing any extra bits that's easily accessible and works straight off I would much appreciate it. Cheers!

Mavis Beacon teaches typing is a handy touch typing programme you can work through - I used to have it on an old pc - link below

http://download.cnet.com/Mavis-Beacon-Teaches-Typing-17-Deluxe/3000-2051_4-10441764.html

fizzoo12 · 22-07-2013 12:25pm

Can anyone tell me if there is a beginners course in website building, I see plenty of templates and free
stuff, did anyone ever use these please ???

kagni · 25-10-2013 11:10pm

Here's a few links to some good university-level online courses.
I'm currently doing one with Coursera and it's very good.

https://www.edx.org/courses
https://www.coursera.org/
http://www.udacity.com/
http://www.saylor.org/
http://www.class-central.com/

Greenmachine · 25-11-2013 11:11pm

Some awesome resources here.

danharris · 19-03-2014 9:39am

hey everybody Newbie Here

Free online courses are the best way to earn online diploma. and its is very beneficial, because you can earn it on your own pace at your own place. i was also the part of Online institution and now i am graduated

Free Online Courses

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