FREE Online Courses

  • Iowa ASCD continues to develop a curated and annotated list of useful web resources for Open Education Resources
  • Academic Earth - free college and university courses and lectures from around the world online
  • Coursera is a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for FREE. They envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Through this, they want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.
  • EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web.  EdX currently offers HarvardX, MITx, and BerkeleyX classes online for free. Beginning in fall 2013, edX will offer WellesleyX and GeorgetownX classes online for free.
  • The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. Their online materials cover subjects ranging from math and finance to history and art.  With over 3,800 bite-sized videos, step-by-step problems and instant data, Khan Academy provides a rich and engaging learning experience.  You can earn points and badges along the way, and coach others as well. 
  • Udacity provides a variety of FREE and affordable online courses. Udacity courses are highly interactive with activities, quizzes, and exercises interspersed between short videos and talks by instructors and industry experts. You can take the courses at your own pace, there are no deadlines. You can re-watch the videos at any time and and retake quizzes, if you wish. Usually after a lesson you will have a problem set with exercises that will help you to determine if you have learned the material taught in that lesson.