Free Online Courses

Learning Japanese with Jason Miller

Dylan Ward — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:17:11 +0000

Course / Program Name: Beginner’s Japanese Lessons

Hosted by / Sponsored by: Japanese-Online.com

Course of Study: Foreign Languages: Japanese

Description: Interested in Japanese? Try a free online course complete with a family cast of characters. The beginner’s course is divided into 4 lessons that guide you as you follow high school student, Jason Miller, and his family in Tokyo where they learn about the life, culture and history of Japan.

The website provides an online dictionary and other useful links. Additional lessons are available in grammar and math once you’ve registered.

Registration and all lessons are free.

Learn Essay And Report Writing Skills With The Open University

Dan Smith — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:00:18 +0000

Course / Program Name: Essay And Report Writing Skills

Hosted by / Sponsored by: The Open University

Course of Study: Writing / Literature

Course Link: Take This Course

Description: Provided by The Open University, Essay And Report Writing Skills is a free online course aimed at helping those in an academic setting to be able to effectively and competently produce essays and reports.

Understanding the importance of being able to properly create an essay or report, this course is made up of 12 individual units, including a complete conclusion and links to a wider range of further reading materials and resources.

Throughout the 15 hours that it is expected to take to complete, the course covers a range of different topics, from understanding the importance of complete planning and preparation to being able to confidently hand in the essay or report.

Writing What You Know With The Open University

Dan Smith — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:00:21 +0000

Course / Program Name: Writing What You Know

Hosted by / Sponsored by: The Open University

Course of Study: Writing / Literature

Course Link: Take This Course

Description: This free online course is provided by The Open University and acts as an introductory course for, among others, creative and descriptive writing students.

Explaining not only the importance of writing what you already know, what you are familiar with and what you are aware of, this free course also provides detailed information on how to become more attentive to your surroundings and events that happen around you on a daily basis, providing you with more subject matter to write on.

Consisting of five overall units, these are broken down into a further nine individual topics and the entire syllabus should take approximately eight hours to complete.

UC Berkeley Teaches You About European Civilization

Jennifer Mattern — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:13:11 +0000

Course / Program Name: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present

Hosted by / Sponsored by: UC Berkeley

Course of Study: History (European)

Course Link: Take this course.

Description: This free online course is actually a webcast lecture series from UC Berkeley’s Carla Hesse.

The free online history course consists of 30 audio lectures, allowing online students to hear the very same lectures given to on-campus students during the Fall 2008 semester.

In this course you will learn about the history of European civilization and how it led to the European landscape and political climate we know today.

BYU Teaches You How to Find Your Ancestors

Jennifer Mattern — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:37:54 +0000

Course / Program Name: Finding Your Ancestors

Hosted by / Sponsored by: Brigham Young University

Course of Study: Genealogy

Course Link: Take this course.

Description: This free online course from Brigham Young University is for anyone who is interested in researching their family history, but who doesn’t know how to start.

Students can choose between a flash-navigated course and a text-navigated course, both of which require free registration.

After you register, you will be able to access the two free online lessons. Lesson one teaches you what kind of information you should look for about your ancestors and where you can find genealogical information online. Lesson two shows you how to go beyond the research itself to record family history information using genealogy software and more.

Learn American Sign Language Online

Jennifer Mattern — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:37:17 +0000

Course / Program Name: American Sign Language Browser

Hosted by / Sponsored by: Michigan State University

Course of Study: Language / Sign Language

Course Link: Take this course.

Description: This free online course from Michigan State University is an interactive approach to learning American sign language.

The ASL browser offers a list of common English words that the student can click on to then see the proper corresponding sign.

Signs are shown via videos, and Quicktime is required to view them.

Learn About Ancient Greek History from Yale

Jennifer Mattern — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:13:26 +0000

Course / Program Name: Introduction to Ancient Greek History

Hosted by / Sponsored by: Yale

Course of Study: History

Course Link: Take this course.

Description: This free online course from Yale is taught by Professor Donald Kagan. In it, you’ll learn about ancient Greek civilization and its various intellectual, political, and creative achievements.

The course is broken down into 24 class sessions where you can choose to watch a video lecture, listen to just the audio of the lecture, or read the lecture transcript.

You will need Flash or Quicktime enabled to watch video lectures from Yale online.

Review: I personally watched several video lectures from this course, and found the professor’s style to be surprisingly engaging and the material quite interesting.

Learn to Speak and Write Mandarin Chinese

Jennifer Mattern — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:11:29 +0000

Course / Program Name: Mandarin Chinese Language

Hosted by / Sponsored by: eLanguageSchool.net

Course of Study: Foreign languages: Chinese

Course Link: Take this course.

Description: This free online course will teach you how to speak, write, and pronounce Mandarin Chinese. The course includes text-based, audio and video lessons, and is broken down into seven categories.

Lessons fall within the following sections:

Learn Basic Mandarin
Learn Chinese Grammar
Learn Chinese Words and Phrases
Learn to Read and Write Chinese Characters
Practice and Exercises
Learn Through Multimedia
External Online Links

Learn how to Write an E-book in 14 Days

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:25:34 +0000

Course / Program Name: How to Write an E-book in Just 14 Days

Hosted by / Sponsored by: Jennifer Mattern

Course of Study: Writing / Literature

Course Link: Take this course.

Description: This free online course is one I developed myself. It originated as a 14 day e-book writing challenge on my freelance writing blog, and was later turned into a downloadable lesson in e-book format. You can download the .pdf file at the link above.

The program offers a great deal of advice on writing, publishing, and marketing your own e-books before taking the reader through a 14-day program to writing their own e-book.

Learn how to write an e-book today either as a new income stream or a marketing tool for your own business.

Clean Your Copy With News University

Jennifer Mattern — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:21:38 +0000

Course / Program Name: Cleaning Your Copy

Hosted by / Sponsored by: News University

Course of Study: Writing / Literature

Course Link: Take this course.

Description: This free online course is offered by News U. Editor Vicki Krueger. The Flash-based module can be completed in about two hours, on your own schedule. To access the class, you need to register (for free) with News U.

The course is directed at journalists, and teaches students how to edit their copy (based on the AP style) and create more compelling headlines. You’ll complete four content areas of the module, learning how to avoid common writing mistakes journalists make before ultimately taking the “copy quotient test.”