Free Online Courses - Top 10 Places on the Internet Where Africans Can Learn Anything for FRE

quality and standard of education in many parts
of Africa is in a terrible situation. The sector is
inadequately funded, school (tuition) fees have
become too expensive for most people and text books
are often outdated, insufficient or highly priced. To
make matters worse, governments across the
continent are not very serious about transforming
and modernising education. Those who can afford it
spend thousands of dollars to study in foreign
colleges and universities. Sadly, if nothing is done
soon, a whole generation of Africans may miss out on
life-changing opportunities that can only come from
high quality learning. Thankfully, the internet will
allow us to avoid such a dark future. What if I told
you that there are places on the internet where you
can learn any subject or skill from some of the
world’s top schools for FREE ? Would you believe
me ? This article shares my top 10 selection of places
on the internet to find free courses. Whatever you
want to learn ; business skills, computer
programming or even how to play the piano, you will
find this article very valuable. Students,
entrepreneurs and people who like to learn new
things will love this too...
Have you ever heard of a ‘MOOC’?
A MOOC is a “Massive Open Online Course.” MOOCs are a recent
development in distance education which began to emerge in
2012. Nowadays, anybody can participate in a MOOC as long as
you have access to the internet. Today, there are thousands of
courses on all kinds of subjects from top universities and learning
institutions around the world. And guess what? Many of them are
available for free!
Yes, from the comfort of your home, it’s now possible to take a
business course from Harvard or a computer programming course
from MIT without paying a single penny! The best part is, MOOCs
are very flexible and you can learn at your own pace and time.
Most MOOCs allow you to watch short video lectures, take
interactive quizzes, complete peer graded assessments, and
connect with classmates and teachers. There are also interactive
user forums that help build a community for students, professors,
and teaching assistants that aids effective and rapid learning.
“Education is what other people do to you. Learning
is what you do to yourself.”
The platforms I’m about to reveal to you will only work very well
for people who have taken personal responsibility to learn. There
is now a disturbing trend of school graduates on our continent who
lack basic knowledge and skills in their areas of study. Sadly, most
Africans now focus on acquiring paper certificates instead of
valuable skills and knowledge.
If you’re serious about learning and improving your knowledge and
skills, it’s time to introduce you to the online platforms that will
help you to achieve your goals. Here they are…
#1 COURSERA (Partly Free)
Coursera is an education platform that partners with top
universities and organizations worldwide to offer courses online for
anyone to take. This platform, which is arguably one of the biggest
out there, was founded by two computer science professors,
Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, both from Stanford University in the
USA.
Coursera works with universities to make some of their courses
available online, and offers courses in several subjects including:
Business, Engineering, Humanities, Medicine, Biology, Physics,
Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, Computer Science, and
several others.
Coursera also has an official mobile app for iPhones and Android
devices which makes it easy and convenient for anyone to learn
on the go. Currently, the platform has over 7 million users and
more than 500 courses from several universities and learning
institutions around the world.
To check out courses on the Coursera platform, follow this link:
https://www.coursera.org/courses
#2 UDACITY (Partly Free)
Udacity is a for-profit educational organization offering massive
open online courses (MOOCs) that are developed and taught by
experts at leading tech companies. Udacity now has a growing
team of educators and engineers who work with students around
the world to bridge the gap between real-world skills, relevant
education, and employment.
Founded in 2011 by Sebastian Thrun, an associate professor at
Stanford University, Udacity now has over 1.6 million users. While
it originally focused on offering university-style courses, the
platform now focuses more on vocational courses for
professionals that cover Data Science, Web Development,
Software Engineering, Android apps etc.
Udacity offers both free and paid courses. Upon completing a
course, students receive a certificate of completion that is signed
by the instructors and indicates their level of achievement.
To check out all the courses available on Udacity, follow this link:
https://www.udacity.com/courses
#3 EdX (Free)
EdX is a non-profit online platform created by founding partners,
Harvard and MIT, two of the world’s most prestigious universities.
The platform offers interactive online classes and MOOCs from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, University
of California (Berkeley), University of Texas and many other
universities within and outside the USA.
Courses on EdX cover several topics including: Biology, Business,
Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Finance, Electronics,
Engineering, Food and Nutrition, History, Humanities, Law,
Literature, Math, Medicine, Music, Philosophy, Physics, Science,
Statistics and more.
EdX is different from other MOOC platforms, such Coursera and
Udacity, because it is entirely nonprofit and runs on an open-
source software platform. Currently, EdX has more than 2.5 million
users enrolled in over 215 courses online.
You can check out all the courses available on EdX by following
this link: https://www.edx.org/course-list
#4 MIT OpenCourseWare (Free)
For people reading this who don’t know how prestigious an
institution MIT really is, let me give you some insight. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is one of the most
selective higher learning institutions in the world. It has already
received 18,357 undergraduate applicantions for the class of 2018
– and has only admitted 1,419. That’s an acceptance rate of just
7.73%!
In 2002, the organization started the pilot phase of MIT
OpenCourseWare (OCW), an internet-based platform that contains
virtually all MIT undergraduate and graduate-level course content.
OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT
activity.
To date, more than 2,000 different courses have been published on
the platform and over 120 million educators, self-learners and
students use the site.
Interested in taking a real MIT course? Check out all the OCW
courses at http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/find-by-topic/
#5 KHAN ACADEMY (Free)
Khan Academy is a non-profit educational platform created in 2006
by Salman Khan to provide "a free, world-class education for
anyone, anywhere." The website features thousands of educational
resources, including a personalized learning dashboard, over
100,000 practice problems, and over 6,000 video tutorials stored on
YouTube. All these resources are available for free to anyone
around the world!
In 2009, the founder, Salman Khan, quit his job in finance as a
hedge fund analyst to focus on KhanAcademy which he started as
a means of teaching mathematics to his cousin. Today the
platform is funded by some of the worlds’ biggest names including
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carlos Slim Foundation
and Google.
The resources on the platform are used by more than 10 million
students around the world every month. Of all the MOOC platforms
available, Khan Academy’s video tutorials are the most viewed. To
check out all the resources on the website and more, visit:
www.khanacademy.org
#6 ALISON (Free)
ALISON (Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online) is an
online learning platform founded in 2007 by Mike Feerick, a serial
entrepreneur. Unlike other MOOC providers with close links to
American learning institutions such as MIT and Stanford
University, the majority of ALISON's learners are located in
developing countries with the fastest growing number of users in
India.
With over 3 million learners in 200 countries, ALISON has attained
global reach and a worldwide reputation. Since 2007, more than
350,000 people all over the world have graduated from its free
certificate and diploma courses.
ALISON currently offers over 600 courses across certificate and
diploma level in ten languages. Visit the platform at
www.alison.com to start a free course today!
#7 UDEMY (Partly Free)
This platform’s mission statement says it all: “to help anyone learn
anything online.” Udemy is the world’s online learning
marketplace, where over 3 million students are taking courses in
everything from programming to yoga to photography–and much
more.
Unlike academic MOOC programs which are mostly driven by
coursework in schools and learning institutions, Udemy provides a
platform for experts of any kind to create courses which can be
offered to the public, either at no charge or for a tuition fee.
Each of the platform’s 18,000+ courses is taught by an expert
instructor, and every course is available on-demand, so students
can learn at their own pace, on their own time, and on any device.
In April 2013, Udemy was first offered as an Apple iOS app,
allowing students to take classes directly from smartphones. The
Android version was launched in January 2014. As of today, the
iOS app has been downloaded over 1 million times, and 20 percent
of Udemy users access their courses via mobile.
To check out all the available courses on this platform, check out
www.udemy.com
#8 LYNDA (Partly Free)
Lynda is an online education platform that offers thousands of
video courses in software, technology, creative and business
skills. Founded in 1995, the company produces video tutorials
taught by experts and members to the Lynda.com library have
unlimited access to watch and learn at their own pace.
Currently, Lynda offers more than 2,400 courses in Business,
Project Management, Design, Web, Programming, Photography,
Video, 3D And Animation, Audio, Education, and Computer Aided
Design (CAD). These courses are available in video format to
members through monthly and annual subscription-based plans.
To check out Lynda.com’s extensive library of courses, visit http://
www.lynda.com/subject/all to learn more.
#9 CODECADEMY (Free)
If you’re interested in learning computer programming (coding), I
don’t think you’ll ever find a better, easier and more effective
platform than Codecademy! With the knowledge you’ll gain from
this platform, you could develop your own software, apps,
websites etc.
Founded in 2011, Codecademy is an online interactive platform
that offers FREE coding classes in six different programming
languages. As of January 2014, the site had over 24 million users
who had completed over 100 million exercises.
To find out more about Codecademy and start coding at
www.codecademy.com
#10 ACADEMIC EARTH (Free)
Since 2008, Academic Earth has compiled a growing collection of
online courses, made available FREE of charge, from some of the
most respected universities in the world. Following the precedent
of MIT OpenCourseware, Academic Earth believes that everyone,
including Africans, deserves access to a world-class education.
To achieve its goal of ‘free education for all’, Academic Earth
provides links to over 750 online courses and 8,500 individual
online lectures, giving students of all ages unparalleled access to
courses they may otherwise never experience.
According to Academic Earth, whether you’re looking to
supplement your knowledge in your current coursework, or you’re
just learning for the sake of learning, anyone with an internet
connection now has the freedom to learn at their own pace from
world-renowned experts, without the burden of rising tuition costs.
To find out more about Academic Earth and all the courses it
offers, visit www.academicearth.org
When will you start to learn?
If you have read this far in this article, I congratulate you! Unlike
most people who claim they don’t have access or money to pay
for quality education, you now have the rare opportunity to
improve your life for free. The online platforms you have just
learned about will unlock huge opportunities for you to learn new
things that would have been unavailable and unaffordable before
now. You now have these tools in your hands. Use it!
Procrastination is a killer of dreams . Don’t succumb to the
temptation to start your learning later. Don’t forget, you’re already
late. The best time to start is today!