Many websites offer free online education for students. From history to coding, excellent free learning awaits on the below 25 websites. Mainly when the topic is education, the resources on the internet are endless. Best of all, many high-quality sites are entirely free.
1. Coursera
Coursera provides a large variety of topics and perspectives to one searchable database. It gives the site an extensive range of in-depth courses. Coursera is hugely helpful if you’re looking to study many various topics or want courses from different schools and groups. Coursera is an excellent website for free online learning and includes courses from several best universities, museums, and trusts. Coursera is partners with universities and institutes around the world.
Source: coursera.org
2. Udemy
This website’s free courses are similar in concept to Coursera’s but additionally permits users to develop custom courses from lessons. Working with many top educators and institutions, the site mixes the customizable platform of other sites with a heavy emphasis on high-quality content. This site provides a combination of free and paid content.
Source: udemy.com
3. edX
Another excellent option for free online education is edX. Also, bringing together courses from many different classes, the site has impressive, quality information for everyone. edX includes a great variety of topics.
Source: edx.org
4. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is partnering with several post-secondary schools. It offers a useable, well-organized interface. Also, curating multiple courses from around the web. It provides impressive depth on various subjects. Among the more well known educational sites, This website is also incredibly useable, which may give it more comfortable to keep learning goals.
Source: khanacademy.org
5. Open Culture Online Courses
If you are struggling to get exactly the material you are looking for, try Open Culture’s listing of free online learning programs. The page highlights more than 1000 lectures, podcasts, and videos from academies around the globe. The site features a lot of material found only on academies private sites, all in a simple to browse categories. This means you can obtain hundreds of university programs without having to visit and explore for each university’s own site. Open Culture’s list features programs from England, Australia, Wales, and many state universities around the United States. A beneficial resource for finding many courses in one area of study.
Source: openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
5. Academic Earth
Another website with courses from various schools is Academic Earth. Academic Earth brings together top-notch courses from many different sources and focuses on offering a wide range of subjects. Academic Earth lists courses by subject & school, so it might be simpler to obtain what you’re looking for.
Source: academicearth.org
7. Alison
Alison is a free learning site offering certification in a few areas. Alison provides programs mainly in business, health, technology, and language learning programs. A great opportunity if users need certification for their education. Alison also gives school curriculum courses.
Source: alison.com
8. iTunesU Free Courses
A very convenient site for free online learning is iTunesU because it integrates seamlessly with your iPod or any app-ready Apple mobile device. On iPad, iPhone users download the iTunesU app. Desktop users can access iTunesU on the upper right-hand corner of the iTunes Store. iTunesU is also convenient because the store is categorized many like iTunes. Users can explore learning materials in many various ways, including genre and topic. However, programs are often a mix of free videos or podcasts and paid content. ITunesU does include programs on a pretty wide range of topics but does not integrate with Android, Google, or Windows mobile devices.
Source: itunes.apple.com/ca/app/itunes-u/id490217893?mt=8
9. Stanford Online
Your hub for all the online providings from Stanford University, Stanford Online, provides self-paced and session-based programs. While Coursera features few programs from Stanford, many classes are only available through other hosts. Few courses require iTunes, but most are completed in your web browser. Stanford Online is an excellent website for high-quality programs, though the topics are somewhat limited compared to websites partnered with more than one school.
Source: online.stanford.edu/courses
10. Harvard Extension
Similar Stanford Online, Harvard Extension features free online learning courses from Harvard University only. This is another excellent website for top-notch course material, though the course variety is less wide than multi-school websites. Additionally, Harvard Extension allows you to find programs by professional certificate. This gives it much easier if your online learning goal includes certification.
Source: extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative
11. Open Yale Courses
Open Yale Courses imitates Harvard Extension and Stanford Online, in that it provides only programs from Yale. While the website is similarly limited to topics taught at the academy, Open Yale Courses provides a lot of videos of actual campus lectures. The availability of videos offers the website a great opportunity if you’re looking for quality programs, but learn better by watching than by reading.
Source: oyc.yale.edu
12. UC Berkeley Class Central
Similarly, UC Berkeley has a kind of free online learning opportunities. The institution has slightly fewer courses than the schools above, but includes few supplementary lectures, webcasts and RSS Feeds, making it simple to keep up with the topics you decide.
Source: class-central.com/university/berkeley
13. MIT OpenCourseWare
Likewise, MIT offers a variety of free online education courses. The institution has a comparable number of programs to the institutions above, plus includes very in-depth program materials on the subjects available. MIT also provides free RSS feeds, a comfortable way to continue learning.
Source: ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
14. Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
Carnegie Mellon’s free online learning website is comparable with the other schools on this list; however, the Open Learning Initiative also includes a smaller range of topics. But for the topics that are covers effective, in-depth material is available.
Source: oli.cmu.edu/learn-with-oli/see-our-free-open-courses/
15. Codecademy
Codecademy is a site dedicated especially to teaching coding. Other coding websites follow an example/practice session workflow. But, Codecademy covers a live practice window. This means you can practice coding while still seeing the lesson material. The programs at Codecademy are well written and simple to follow, and the website is organized very finely. Codecademy features a centralized dashboard where you can control your progress, plus organizes lessons into whole modules. This lets you study an entire language without requiring to pick the next program manually.
Source: codecademy.com
16. Code
Code is another website concentrated on coding and app writing. A website with high-quality programs, Code also features learning opportunities for kids. In addition to kid-friendly courses, This website provides free online education courses on a wide range of technology topics. These courses include robotics, app writing, and Javascript. Most of the programs are also geared in such a way that they can be useful in a classroom setting. This makes Code an excellent resource for harder to find coding topics, as well as various learning settings.
Source: code.org/learn
17. University of London Podcasts
The podcast page on the University of London website is another excellent website for free online education. While the courses are limited to podcasts, the site features podcasts from its own campus, as well as 11 universities in & around London. This gives learners a broad base of topics and lectures but still ensures in-depth material.
Source: london.ac.uk/podcast.html
18. University of Oxford Podcasts
Similar to the University of London, the University of Oxford features many different podcasts. Most are public lecture series or lectures from visiting professors, with several different recordings available. The advantage of this particular site is that podcasts are organized into series, making it easy to subscribe to multiple lectures on one topic — another good site for thoroughly in-depth lectures.
Source: podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series
19. BBC Podcasts
For the most casual learner tool, the BBC allows a wide variety of podcasts on many various topics. Most podcasts are updated weekly and concentrate on everything from finance to sports to current affairs. Through the World service line of podcasts, there are also many in various languages. The focus of these podcasts is limited in-depth and theory-based, which may be more accessible to the average person.
Source: bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/forum
20. TED-Ed
Another excellent destination for a more common learning tool is TED-Ed. From the few people that brought you the all-encompassing, motivational web series comes to a website chocked complete of educational videos. Most include awesome animation, and all are 10 minutes long or less. Not only is TED-Ed an excellent site for the curious, but it also includes supplemental materials and quizzes on the videos. This gives the site extremely helpful informal education settings, as well as interesting ways to brush up on new discoveries & topics.
Source: ed.ted.com
21. LessonPaths
LessonPaths is another excellent tool for those looking for a more practical and convenient way to access learning material. On this website, users build link playlists of their favorite learning materials from other websites. Users then rank these collections, making it simple to find many different high quality, accessible sources on a given topic.
Source: lessonpaths.com/categories/browsePlaylists/academic
22. Memrise
Another important free online education website providing ease of use and convenience is Memrise. It is available both on desktop and as an app, Memrise is a particularly powerful tool if you are studying a language. The site encompasses many other topics as well, though few of the course material is user-generated content. Part of what makes Memrise unique is its integration of games into the learning materials, mixing learning with entertainment.
Source: memrise.com
23. National Geographic Kids
The kid’s site for National Geographic is another site that makes free online education applicable to younger users. For those looking for kid-friendly education, a large variety of games, puzzles, videos, and photos keeps kids interested on this site. National Geographic Kids doesn’t organize learning into courses, making materials available by topic and medium instead. This makes National Geographic Kids a good opportunity for those looking for a more casual learning environment.
Source: kids.nationalgeographic.com
24. Fun Brain
Fun Brain is another good option for kids who want to learn online but focuses on games and fun puzzles. Mainly focused on math and reading, Fun Brain’s game-based approach can be valuable if the child in question struggles to pay attention. Fun Brain gives rewards & challenges as well and is another site aimed at a casual learning experience for kids K-8.
Source: funbrain.com
25. Whyville
Similar to the sites for kids, free online education is Whyville, a destination for preteen online education. The site includes a variety of social features, with a focus on learning materials geared for young teens. Whyville also mixes in educational games, to make the site an excellent opportunity for children too old for simple games, but too young for heavy reading based material.
Source: whyville.net/smmk/nice
