It’s so important to not consider the end of your academic learning as the end of your learning. The world moves at such a pace now and it’s important that we constantly look for ways to improve and learn new things. Technology has changed so many things (certainly in our industry) but there is also a big move to change education. There are more and more opportunities to learn skills that would have required you going back to college. Now you can pick up so many things online and for free.
Below are my 3 favourite sites – that I use as regularly as I can to stay up-skilled in this industry. They won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but keep your eyes peeled and you will certainly find sites like these in your chosen area.
1. Coursera
This video is from a Ted talk by Daphne Koller titled ‘What we’re learning from online education‘ gives a great insight to the power of online education and the opportunities it affords. The site they talk about is Coursera;
“We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students.
Through this, we hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.”
I started a course a few weeks back called Statistics One given by a senior lecturer from Princeton. I wanted to brush up on my statistics knowledge and this gave me the chance to watch video lectures in my own time at my own pace. There are ‘optional’ exams and quizzes which help with remembering the main points. It’s a truly excellent resource and there are currently 198 courses listed from a variety of different topics. Check it out.
2. Kahn Academy
This is another site i picked up through Ted and was developed around the flipped classroom approach. The flipped coaching approach was first introduced to me by Mark Upton from Sports Relations – check out his work!. The Kahn academy is another fantastic resource of video tutorials and gives you the opportunity to learn in your own time.
“With a library of over 3,400 videos on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice, we’re on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace.”
3. Lynda.com
This is not a free resource but I have turned to this site a couple of times to brush up my skills on various software programmes. Sometimes we just need a refresher in excel or it might be to learn something totally new like Photoshop or InDesign. You can join for $25 a month and cancel your subscription at anytime. I tend to join and then quit as and when I need it rather than leave my subscription run all year. They have over 1,484 courses so there is plenty of learning to be done.
Any Others?
Has anybody got other sites they use – would be good to let people know.
