Internet University – a Free Guide to the Best Free Online Courses
Latest news: I've been spending a LOT of time on YouTube, watching great lectures and discussions. Don't overlook YouTube!
I love the column of recommendations down the right-hand side of the page. I follow chains of these, saving some additional videos in extra windows. I don't know how to organize these videos for you, yet.
(You should probably be there instead of here! Come back here anyway for my "curated" recommendations :-)
Frictionless Distribution Meets Higher Education! Online courses are ideal!
• Ideal for individualizing your education! Enormous range of topics; courses vary from easy to challenging
• Ideal for upgrading and updating résumé skills – tech, genomics, statistics…
• Ideal substitute or supplement for high school AP courses
• Ideal for lifelong learning
It's starting to become clearer that there are two kinds of online courses: real-time courses with assignment deadlines (from Coursera, edX and iVersity), and open-enrollment on-demand courses. Some of the latter are just a sequence of YouTube videos of conventional lectures. Udacity has changed from real–time to on–demand. I still believe that either kind of course can be outstanding.
A revolution has begun; instead of reducing the high cost of education, we're starting from free.
We can customize the learning experience for different learner needs and thinking styles.
World–class education is available everywhere, to everyone.
The amount of open educational resources has exploded. I have listed some courses here by reputation without having taken them myself.
I always personally stand behind the recommendation for a **featured course**.
Start here: Sir Ken Robinson says, "Bring on the Learning Revolution!" (millions of views!!) + RSA Animate version + at Zeitgeist.
Bill Gates says online education can reduce the cost of college from $200,000 to $2,000. Salman Khan explains how.
The solution: Open Educational Resources, like those you'll find right here.
REAL–TIME COURSES WITH DEADLINES: (they'll email you a reminder when the course is ready to begin)
iversity is a German MOOC factory. They look awesome! The course topics are excellent.
edX publishes courses from 27 universities, including Australian National, Berkeley, Berklee College of Music, Boston, Davidson, TU Delft, Georgetown, Harvard, Hong Kong, Karolinska Institut, Kyoto, ÉPF Lausanne, Louvain, McGill, MIT, TU Munich, Peking, Queensland, Rice, Texas, Seoul, Toronto, Tsinghua, Washington and Wellesley. They've built an open source platform for courseware developers.
The Open Online Academy also uses the edX tools.
Coursera publishes courses from 133 universities, including Berklee College of Music, British Columbia, Brown, CalTech, Columbia, Duke, ÉPF Lausanne, Edinburgh, Emory, Florida, Georgia Tech, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Illinois, Irvine, Johns Hopkins, London, Maryland, Melbourne, Michigan, Mt Sinai School of Medicine, Ohio State, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Princeton, Rice, San Francisco, Stanford, Toronto, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Washington and Wesleyan.
OPEN–ENROLLMENT ON–DEMAND COURSES:
Udacity a powerful new operation founded by the legendary professor Sebastian Thrun. Udacity has a new category of paid courses with projects, code review and feedback, personal coaching and certificates. Surprisingly, the courses are priced PER MONTH so you can save money by working fast! Udacity is very well–connected in the tech world, and they know how to make your résumé shine. Udacity will continue to offer free top–notch courses. They've been created on the modern (Salman Khan) paradigm: short video segments followed by a question. Udacity courses are open-enrollment with no deadlines. Another plus is the friendly, talented and experienced Sebastian Thrun himself. He and Salman Khan are the expert veterans of this young discipline.
Khan Academy: more lessons delivered by Salman Khan than by MIT or Stanford! 4,100 videos available. Khan invented the MOOC! He's one of the best.
Canvas Network collects online courses, much like this site does, with more complete listings but without ratings.
Academic Earth is an aggregator, sort of like the Huffington Post for lectures.
Udemy republishes 6,000 courses, some free, some paid.
Venture Lab offers courses on entrepreneurship from Stanford, for free.
MIT Open Courseware OCW Technology FAQ.
Got 20 minutes? Visit TED! Here are some of the best TED talks **Featured Lectures**, they're truly mind–expanding.
Zeitgeistminds **Featured Lectures** offers lots of everything, sort of like TED.
Not sure about these:
Codeacademy "teaching the world to code" (create computer programs and websites, etc.)
Class2Go is another free online arm of Stanford University.
iTunes U from Apple.
Open2Study comes from Australia.
Schoo is all–Japanese.
FutureLearn is a free British site.
www.saylor.org offers free courses with a completion certificate.
University of the People, "UoPeople" is tuition–free.
People-to-People University: "At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback."
About U, the how–to department of about.com.
Einztein, the social learning network.
Wikiversity is mostly still just scaffolding.
Google EngEdu state–of–the–art engineering, and much, much more.
Connexions at Rice University. Open-Source textbooks. Richard Baraniuk on open source education.
César Hidalgo from MIT's Media Lab interviews famous scientists on Cambridge Nights: Conversations about a Life in Science.
PHYSICS:
Richard Muller and Bob Jacobsen Physics for Future Presidents Fall 2009 edition, Fall 2010 edition **Featured course** UC Berkeley Physics 10, course website, book, voted the best course at UC Berkeley; awesome lectures on energy, nuclear weapons, Area 51, and the nature of science. Muller, a former climate change skeptic, has announced that he has become a believer. Then Muller added a book Energy for Future Presidents. It's great, too.
Richard Feynman The Feynman Lectures on Physics, **Featured lectures** Volumes 1, 2 and 3, free online from Caltech.
Richard Feynman lectures on The Character of Physical Law and Quantum Electrodynamics **Featured lectures** popular, less–mathematical, lectures at Cornell and the University of Auckland; legendary masterpieces from a brilliant teacher.
Andy Brown and Jonathan Burket Intro to Physics: Landmarks in Physics Udacity PH100 Learn the basics of physics on location in Italy, the Netherlands and the UK.
Walter Lewin Physics I: Classical Mechanics MIT 8.01.
Walter Lewin Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism MIT 8.02.
Walter Lewin Physics III: Vibrations and Waves MIT 8.03.
Leonard Susskind Modern Physics series: Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity, Statistical Mechanics, Cosmology,
New Revolutions in Particle Physics, Quantum Entanglements, Stanford Continuing Studies; a new topic every quarter.
Brian Greene The Elegant Universe, three NOVA episodes on string theory.
Steven Beckwith The Dawn of Creation: The First Two Billion Years, 2008 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture in Astronomy.
Frank Wilczek Anticipating a New Golden Age, 2010 J. Robert Oppenheimer Lecture; the LHC will introduce a period of rapid advances in our understanding of nature.
David Gross The Coming Revolutions in Theoretical Physics, Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, 2007.
Burt Richter Elementary Particle Physics: A Personal Look Ahead, 2008 Emilio Segré Lecture (skip first 12 minutes.)
Savas Dimopoulos Particle Physics in the 21st Century, Stanford University.
N. David Mermin Spooky Actions at a Distance? Mysteries of the Quantum Theory, 2008 J. Robert Oppenheimer Lecture.
Richard Fitzpatrick The Physics of Plasmas, University of Texas at Austin.
Lorna J. Gibson & Simona Socrate Mechanical Behavior of Materials, MIT3.032X/edX.
Paul Francis & Brian Schmidt The Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe, Australian National University ANU-ASTRO1X/edX, excellent!
Paul Francis & Brian Schmidt Exoplanets, Australian National University ANU-ASTRO2X/edX.
Questions no one knows the answers to, presented by TED.
Sean Carroll The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time, University of Sydney. Part 2.
James Peebles Exploring the Large–Scale Nature of the Universe 2006 Charles and Martha Hitchcock Lecture at UC Berkeley.
MinutePhysics is a YouTube channel of fast–talking physics, on whiteboards.
Hypothetical physics question answered by xkcd.
CHEMISTRY
Michael Cima Introduction to Solid State Chemistry MIT/edX 3.091x, a first-year course in chemical principles via properties of materials.
Catherine Drennan and Elizabeth Vogel Taylor Principles of Chemical Science MIT 5.111.
Keith Nelson and Moungi Bawendi Thermodynamics & Kinetics MIT 5.60.
Patricia Christie Kitchen Chemistry MIT SP287 (also 5.S15 and ESG.SP287).
Theo Gray shows off his periodic table table.
Tom Lehrer sings The Element Song.
BIOLOGY & MEDICINE:
Alma Moon Novotny Fundamentals of Immunology Rice BIOC372.1X/edX, a four-part series; Alma really knocks herself out to make the material non–dreary!
Jill Helms Hippocrates Challenge 2013 Stanford School of Medicine/Stanford Online; you're the doctor in a medical emergency in 2032; "for anyone with an interest in medicine."
Eric Lander and Robert Weinberg Introduction to Biology MIT 7.012 (focus on current research in cell biology, immunology, neurobiology, genomics and molecular medicine.)
Eric Lander Introduction to Biology - The Secret of Life MIT 7.00X/edX (this is a real–time version of Lander's course)
Hazel Sive and Tyler Jacks Introductory Biology MIT 7.013 (same scope as 7.012, focus on human biology.)
Graham Walker and Sallie Chisholm Introductory Biology MIT 7.014 (same scope as 7.012, focus on microorganisms as geochemical agents of biosphere and human health.)
Bioengineering Faculty Introduction to Bioengineering MIT 7.38J (also 20.010J, 2.790J, 6.025J, BE.010J and 10.010J).
Dick Malkin Biochemistry UC Berkeley Biology 1.
Bob Goldberg and John Harada Genetic Engineering and Society UCLA and UC Davis HC70A.
Emma Meagher Fundamentals of Pharmacology UPenn/Coursera. Video lectures in a delightful "Strine" accent, with optional [recommended] captions. Unfortunately, she reads her slides.
Jasper Rine Looking for the Good News in your Genome: Personalized Medicine, UC Berkeley & Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Nano High lecture; excellent.
Wikipedia Central Dogma of Molecular Biology Common Misunderstandings of Genetics.
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research produced animations of DNA wrapping and replication.
The Inner Life of the Cell from Harvard and XVIVO. The newest version is called Protein Packing; the kinesin motor proteins are amazing.
The Khan Academy now offers consumer-oriented medical education.
Steve Haddock describes the incredible diversity of jellyfish. Beautiful video from MBARI, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. 49 more gorgeous videos here.
Stewart Brand Rethinking Green speech at a meeting of the Long Now Foundation.
Nick Hope Bali Diving gorgeous scuba video. More here.
COMPUTER SCIENCE:
Here's a fascinating, good-paying proposition: become a journeyman information technician.
Video library from code.org
Free Code Camp is a free programming course that quickly prepares you for a high-paying job. That's an amazing deal!
Vincent Vanhoucke and Arpan Chakrabortty Deep Learning **Featured course** Udacity; a challenging course but an extremely valuable skill; coding in Python.
Hour of Code comes again every December. Visit code.org! Visit the Khan Academy's Hour of Code website!
UC Berkeley offers an all-online master of information and data science.
Masters degree in Computer Science from Udacity and Georgia Tech, sponsored by AT&T. Comments.
Bertrand Meyer, Marco Piccioni, Nadia Polikarpova & Peter Widmayer Computing: Art, Magic, Science, ETH Zurich CAMSX/edX, introductory computer science with coding in the browser.
Scott E. Page Model Thinking **Featured course** Michigan/Coursera; valuable tools!! This is a tremendously important subject!
Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig Introduction to Artificial Intelligence **Featured course** Udacity CS271, this course was a legendary experience.
Sebastian Thrun Artificial Intelligence: Programming a Robotic Car **Featured course** Udacity CS373; a legendary course.
Bill Howe Introduction to Data Science University of Washington/Coursera; the hottest topic; get a job!
David Malan & Dan Armendariz Understanding Computers and the Internet Harvard Extension School/edX CSE-1, course website, this is an introductory course.
David Malan and a cast of 109 staff members Introduction to Computer Science I HarvardX/edX CS50X; no prerequisites, for CS majors and non–majors alike, but be prepared: there are 8 programming problem sets estimated at 15-20 hours each, plus 2 quizzes, plus a project. It's apparently a transformative experience!! Watch the first lecture!!
Michael Littman Algorithms: Crunching Social Networks Udacity CS215; an introduction to the design and analysis of algorithms.
John Regehr Software Testing: How to Make Software Fail Udacity CS258; learn how to catch bugs and break software.
David Evans Intro to Computer Science: Building a Search Engine Udacity CS101; a legendary course.
Peter Norvig Design of Computer Programs: Programming Principles Udacity CS212. An advanced course.
Steve Huffman and David Evans Web Applications Engineering: How to Build a Blog Udacity CS253;.
Westley Weimer Programming Languages: Building a Web Browser Udacity CS262. Build a browser, learn Javascript and HTML.
Jennifer Widom Introduction to Databases Stanford CS 145, runs in real–time from Stanford's Class2Go.
Nick Parlante Computer Science 101 Stanford/Coursera. Zero prerequisites. Coding in the browser.
Eric Grimson & John Guttag Introduction to Computer Science and Programming MIT 6.00, course website; computational thinking for beginners, in Python.
Mung Chiang Networks: Friends, Money and Bytes Princeton/Coursera.
Kevin Werbach Gamification Stanford/Coursera.
Tim Roughgarden Algorithms, Design and Analysis, Part 1 Stanford/Coursera.
Charles Severance Internet History, Technology, and Security Michigan/Coursera.
Dan Jurafsky and Christopher Manning Natural Language Processing Stanford/Coursera.
Silvio Savarese and Fei-Fei Li Computer Vision: From 3D Reconstruction to Visual Recognition Stanford/Coursera.
Andrew Ng Introduction to Machine Learning Stanford CS 229 available again, along with an earlier set of video lectures.
Yaser Abu–Mostafa Learning from Data Caltech CS156; machine learning; this is a very elegant, very abstract presentation.
Bill Howe Introduction to Data Science Univ of Washington/Coursera; big data.
Dan Garcia The Beauty and Joy of Computing UC Berkeley CS 10, syllabus, online textbook.
Ajay Kapur, Introduction to Programming for Digital Artists, CalArts/Coursera, teaches multimedia programming in ChucK.
Mehran Sahami Programming Methodology Stanford CS 106A.
Jerry Cain Programming Paradigms Stanford CS 107; introduces C, assembly, C++, Scheme, Python.
Eric Grimson and John Guttag Introduction to Computer Science and Programming MIT 6.00.
Erik Demaine and Charles Leiserson Introduction to Algorithms MIT 6.046J (also called 18.410 and SMA5503); another presentation of the course.
Brian Harvey Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley CS 61A (also at Academic Earth) (also at YouTube); teaches Scheme, a Lisp-like language; very sophisticated.
Eric Grimson, Peter Szolovits and Trevor Darrell Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, MIT 6.001 (same topic and book as above).
Richard Stallman tells how to learn programming in a more realistic environment.
Google Python Class. Python as a second language.
Introduction to HTML 5 (42–minute video) by Brad Neuberg of Google.
CodeAcademy will teach you to program, for free.
Code.org, promotes programming skills for everyone.
Dev Bootcamp is a 9–week hands–on apprenticeship teaching web application development, using Ruby on Rails, Javascript, etc. Not free.
Encouragement for women (women make excellent programmers): Made with Code, the Ada Initiative, Code Chix, Women Who Code, Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, Pyladies, Women at Google.
Encouragement for youngsters (kids make excellent programmers): FIRST LEGO League, Coder Dojo, Blockly (drag and drop), Scratch.
Speak French? If you're "born to code," maybe 42 is the school for you. Free.
Fifteen ways to sort visualized.
Romainian / Hungarian bubble sort, insert sort, shell sort, select sort, merge sort, quicksort dances.
MATHEMATICS:
Keith Devlin, Introduction to Mathematical Thinking **Featured course** Stanford/Coursera; teaches how to advance from high school math to university math -- a subject rarely found in course catalogs. I really enjoyed it! This is as close to a course on "how to think" as you're ever likely to find. The coaching and advice is outstanding.
Sebastian Thrun and Adam Sherwin Introduction to Statistics: Making Decisions Based on Data **Featured course** Udacity ST101; useful for everyone.
Statistical Reasoning was written by a team at Carnegie-Mellon University. It offers a simplified discussion of probability.
Probability and Statistics is a variation of the same course, with a fuller, more–classical section on probability.
Khan Academy ** Featured lessons** From zero to calculus in 15–minute chunks. Celebrated and popular lessons. The curriculum is now expanding beyond math.
Robert Ghrist Single Variable Calculus U Penn/Coursera, advanced level, sophisticated animations.
David Evans Applied Cryptography: Science of Secrets Udacity CS387.
Jörn Loviscach Differential Equations in Action Udacity CS222.
Gilbert Strang Linear Algebra **Featured course** MIT 18.06; a spell–binding performance; highest rating.
Matthew O. Jackson and Yoav Shoham Game Theory Stanford/Coursera.
Robert Sedgewick Analytic combinatorics, Part I Princeton/Coursera.
Robert Sedgewick Analytic combinatorics, Part II Princeton/Coursera.
David Jerison Single Variable Calculus MIT 18.01SC.
Dennis Auroux Multivariable Calculus MIT 18.02.
Arthur Mattuck Differential Equations MIT 18.03.
Gilbert Strang Mathematical Methods for Engineers I MIT 18.085, graduate-level.
Gilbert Strang Mathematical Methods for Engineers II MIT 18.086, graduate-level.
Sanjoy Mahajan Street–Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving MIT 18.098, very demanding.
Stephen A. Weis Mini–Course in Cryptography Google 2007.
Stephen Wolfram A New Kind of Science **Featured lecture** the 2003 H Paul Rockwell Memorial Lecture; impressive scope includes philosophy, computation, natural sciences, etc., etc.
Math Encounters: puzzles, soap bubbles, etc.
MacTutor History of Mathematics.
Wikiversity Mathematics.
Numberphile is like a magazine of mathematics. They investigate whether The Simpsons has disproved Fermat's Last Theorem. Ulam's spiral, too! More spirals!
James Grime explains the uncanny behavior of the Grandi series.
The official Rubik's cube website.
Ed Brumgnach's web tool generates magic squares.
Vi Hart, a **featured personality** has her own YouTube channel; don't miss three videos on hexaflexagons; now she works for the Khan Academy! ♡
PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, ETHICS:
Deb Houry and Pamela Scully Understanding Violence **Featured course** Emory University/ Coursera.
Michael Sandel Justice Course **Featured course** Harvard/edX ER22X, Harvard's first course published on the web; an amazing and eye-opening series, beautifully produced by PBS. Here's a new session on edX!
Michael Nagler Nonviolence **Featured course** UC Berkeley PACS164A & PACS164B; principled nonviolent action, like Gandhi practiced, not just a trick to get something! Inspiring!
William Perry Living at the Nuclear Brink: Yesterday and Today **Featured course** Stanford, advice against nuclear weapons by a distinguished former Secretary of Defense.
Gregory Nagy The Ancient Greek Hero HarvardX/edX CB22X, this will be the first humanities course for edX.
Steven B. Smith Introduction to Political Philosophy Open Yale course Plsc 114.
Kathleen Bawn Politics, Strategy, and Game Theory UCLA PolSci 30.
Marianne Talbot Philosophy for Beginners Oxford.
Marianne Talbot Critical Reasoning for Beginners Oxford; formal logic.
Peter Millikan General Philosophy Oxford, audio with slides.
James Burke's outstanding Connections public television series from 1978, 1994 and 1997.
Shelly Kagan Death Open Yale course Phil 146.
Christine Hayes Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) Open Yale course RLST 145.
Dale B. Martin Introduction to the New Testament History and Literature Open Yale course RLST 152.
PSYCHOLOGY:
Dacher Keltner & Emiliana Simon-Thomas, The Science of Happiness edX/BerkeleyX GG101X**Featured course** formula for happiness: awareness, stability, compassion.
Scott Plous Social Psychology Coursera/Wesleyan **Featured course** It's a winner! With 200,000 enrollees, it's Coursera's biggest course ever!!
Dan Ariely A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior Coursera/Duke **Featured course** simply outstanding; I loved it!
Paul Bloom Introduction to Psychology Open Yale course Psyc110.
Daniel Kahneman Intuition: The Marvels and Flaws Charles and Martha Hitchcock Lecture at UC Berkeley.
ECONOMICS:
Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabarrok and Joana Gironte Principles of Economics: Microeconomics Marginal Revolution University; also available in Spanish.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok Principles of Economics: Macroeconomics Marginal Revolution University.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok Money Skills Marginal Revolution University.
Don Boudreaux, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok Everyday Economics Marginal Revolution University.
Thomas Stratmann Understanding Data Marginal Revolution University.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok Development Economics Marginal Revolution University.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok International Finance Marginal Revolution University.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok International Trade Marginal Revolution University.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok Great Economists: Classical Economics and Its Forerunners Marginal Revolution University.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok The Eurozone Crisis Marginal Revolution University.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok Economics of the Media Marginal Revolution University.
Robin Grier Mexico's Economy: Current Prospects and History Marginal Revolution University.
Guinevere Liberty Nell Economic History of the Soviet Union Marginal Revolution University.
Arnold Kling The American Housing Finance System Marginal Revolution University.
Scott E. Page Model Thinking University of Michigan/Coursera a very widely useful topic, marred by frequent misstatements. These should have been fixed! This is an amazing topic.
J. Bradford Delong Introduction to Economics UC Berkeley Economics 1, audio only.
R. Preston McAfee Introduction to Economic Analysis Caltech EC1, a creative commons–licensed textbook; also an older, mathematical version, course website and PowerPoint slides.
Benjamin Polak Game Theory Open Yale course Econ 159; energetic and witty. He tries to deliver a Michael–Sandel–type experience without enough production support; nonetheless, a great course.
ENGINEERING:
Sarah Burch and Sara Harris Climate Literacy: Navigating Climate Change Conversations University of British Columbia/Coursera.
Karl Ulrich Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society University of Pennsylvania/Coursera.
Marissa Mayer Google: Ideas Come from Everywhere, Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
David Kelley and Jonathan Littman Principles of Product Design Stanford Entrepreneurship.
EDUCATION:
Amy Albanese and Tracy Kelly Science Education for 21st Century Learners (a course for science teachers), College of Exploration & Ashland University.
John MacBeath Foundations of Teaching for Learning 1: Introduction Commonwealth Education Trust.
Dennis Francis Foundations of Teaching for Learning 2: Being a Teacher Commonwealth Education Trust.
George Oduro Foundations of Teaching for Learning 3: Learners and Learning Commonwealth Education Trust.
Suseela Malakolunthu and John MacBeath Foundations of Teaching for Learning 4: Curriculum Commonwealth Education Trust.
Judy Halbert Foundations of Teaching for Learning 5: Planning for Teaching and Learning Commonwealth Education Trust.
Peter Keegan, Gavin Brown and John MacBeath Foundations of Teaching for Learning 6: Introduction to Student Assessment Commonwealth Education Trust.
Stephan Dinham and John MacBeath Foundations of Teaching for Learning 7: Being a Professional Commonwealth Education Trust.
Fawaz Shareef, Tony Townsend and John MacBeath Foundations of Teaching for Learning 8: Developing Relationships Commonwealth Education Trust.
Sanjoy Mahajan Teaching College-Level Science and Engineering MIT 18.094J (also 5.95J, 6.982J, 8.395J).
ART:
The Khan Academy has added an art history department. It's a **Featured course**; actually it's a whole series of featured courses!
Anna Divinsky Introduction to Art: Concepts & Techniques Penn State/Coursera; an introductory combination of art history and studio art.
Ajay Kapur, Introduction to Programming for Digital Artists CalArts/Coursera, teaches multimedia programming in ChucK.
CreativeLIVE offers free photography workshops.
82nd and Fifth is a visually stunning series from the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Art 21, a public television series.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the very first museums to put their entire collections online.
The Getty Museum See the entire collection online.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art is also doing a fine job online.
The British Museum videos and art.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has a "magazine" about their collection.
WikiArt is looking very good, very comprehensive.
Artchive Mark Harden's gallery of famous paintings.
WebMuseum famous paintings presented by Nicolas Pioch.
OCAIW Orazio Centaro's gallery of famous paintings.
ArtCyclopedia is a recent addition.
Picasso painting. One commenter says, "DON'T pick Picasso on your Pictionary team!" Mystery of Picasso Another clip.
What is Art? by Ann Temkin Part 2, a show at the Museum of Modern Art organized by Anne Umland.
Great Museums: In Our Time The Museum of Modern Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chinese art at the Met.
Artist interviews by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel.
Diana E E Kleiner Roman Architecture Open Yale course Hsar 252.
John S. McNamara Introduction to Visual Thinking UC Berkeley Practice of Art 8.
Piet Mondrian: A Journey through Modern Art morphing Mondrians, by UnterEumel with music by Philip Glass.
Documentary on Francis Bacon. Bacon retrospective at the Tate Modern.
The story of Harry C. Beck's London Underground Map.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Connections Series.
The Getty Search Gateway offers lots of free and open images.
The Google Art Project is starting out very poorly. It indexes artists only by their FIRST names, and navigation is totally screwed up. They'll straighten it out someday.
MUSIC:
Music Animation Machine **Featured site** by Stephen Malinowski.
Robert Greenberg is the dominant teacher at the Great Courses (low–cost CDs and DVDs; wait for sales!). He's that good.
John Covach History of Rock, Part One University of Rochester/Coursera.
Performances by Glenn Gould, Maria João Pires, Jacqueline du Pré, Yo-Yo Ma.
Animusic music box is interesting. Also here, here and here.
John Adams rehearses Shaker Loops.
Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
Maya Beiser plays all eight parts of Steve Reich's Cello Counterpoint and David Lang's World to Come.
Vi Hart makes music as well as math: 12 Tones.
A Better Way to Practice, from Noa Kageyama.
LIBRARIES and REFERENCE:
Wikipedia List of Common Misconceptions **Featured site** Meet the people who make Wikipedia. How Wikipedia works.
Business Insider's List of 52 Common Misconceptions.
Inside Search, six 50-minute lessons on advanced Google search techniques.
Bill Gates sponsors the Big History course, his favorite course of all.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Digital Public Library of America.
CIA World Factbook: basic information about every country.
Iowa State University e-Library.
California open-source textbooks.
David Rumsey's comprehensive map collection also includes many timelines.
TwistedSifter[!] offers 40 maps "that will help you make sense of the world."
Wowio: books evolved.
Fogonazos: 13 time–lapse wonders.
History of the Middle East in 90 seconds.
1000 Years of European History in 3 ½ minutes.
History of US Presidential Politics 1920-2008 in 74 seconds.
Multi–layer animated history map of the United States.
History of the US Civil War in 4 minutes.
Time–lapse visualization of global warming since 1800 from Richard Muller at Berkeley Earth.
Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature, by xkcd
Feedbooks, a big library of electronic public–domain books.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Urban Legends Reference Pages from the comprehensive and reliable pages of snopes.com.
Powers of Ten **Featured film** Never-equalled information density! At last, here is the even better Rough Sketch! The Cosmic Eye is similar. Also: Powers of Time.
Timelapse view of the Earth from the International Space Station. Excellent tour of the station. Live view from the station.
Amazing simulation of the large–scale structure of the Universe from FutureTimeline.net.
Time scales put into perspective at Here is Today.
The Scale of the Universe, an interactive tool.
Worldwide Telescope, from Microsoft.
Digital Universe Atlas from the Hayden Planetarium.
WikiSky atlas.
Sky Survey by Photopic.
National Geographic Education.
ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements), a catalog of the human genome's functional elements, including genes, RNA transcripts, etc.; user guide.
U.S. Department of Energy Genomics Gateway.
data.gov census and economic information. A US census map with 341 million dots.
TOOLS:
Foreign Service Institute language lessons **Featured lessons** public–domain diplomatic–quality language courses from the US Government in 44 languages; these are excellent language lessons "made available through the private efforts of individuals who are donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for language learning." Thank you, folks!
Duolingo offers free lessons in Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portugese, while you translate the web.
Scott Young explains Richard Feynman's powerful study technique.
Wolfram Alpha, a sophisticated question–answering system used by Siri.
gapminder.org Gapminder desktop How to use Gapminder, scientific visualization from Hans Rosling (see his TED videos).
Spreeder can teach you how to read faster.
My Physics Lab: digital simulation with Java.
Rick Smolin wrote The Human Face of Big Data. Here's a report from BBC News.
How to ask a question, by Peter Wood.
Richard Hamming explains How To Do World–Class Scientific Research (text only, but worth it.)
READY TO GRADUATE?? COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES:
John Kennedy at American University 1963.
Nora Ephron at Wellesley College 1996.
Steve Jobs at Stanford 2005.
Bill Gates at Harvard 2007.
J. K. Rowling at Harvard 2008.
Larry Page at Michigan 2009.
Marissa Mayer at IIT 2009. ♡
Barack Obama at Arizona State 2009.
Barack Obama at Michigan 2010.
Barack Obama at Hampton 2010.
Sheryl Sandberg at Barnard College 2011.
Neil Gaiman at University of the Arts 2012.
Michael Lewis at Princeton 2012.
Also, 2010 high school valedictorian Erica Goldson speaks out.
SOME USEFUL LOW–COST ALTERNATIVES:
DistancelearningPortal.com currently lists 2,500 online Bachelors, Masters, PhDs and short courses, offered at 260 universities in 26 European countries, the US, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong
Western Governors University is fully accredited. You can actually earn a bachelor's or master's degree online. It's nonprofit, and considered a bargain.
Excelsior College was Regents College, offers credit by examination, alternative curricula.
Lori Kobelan has compiled a comparison of online masters in teaching programs.
Thinkwell sells tutorials for high school, college and home–schooled students.
Great Courses Series (formerly known as The Teaching Company) offers outstanding courses on CD and DVD.
Bill Gates is a satisfied customer. Don't pay full price! Wait for your course to go on its annual sale!!
Lynda.com is the go–to place for learning visual software; use their library of 90,000 videos for $25 per month.
The International Baccalaureate encourages education reform worldwide, offers professional development for teachers.
Road Scholar used to be called Elderhostel. Excellent retirement learning,
especially at the Art Institute of Chicago, High Sierra wilderness adventure, North Holland bike tour, New York and Paris art tours.