40 Free Education Sites

Today, many people are taking a proactive hand in their own education.  From people going online to learn how to play guitar and make quilts. to those who can take classes that will lead to degrees.  Here are 40 excellent sites to use on your educational journey.

I found these sites on the website I Heart Intelligence.com.  They were submitted by Stan.

1. ALISON –  over 60 million lessons and records 1.2 million unique visitors per month
2. COURSERA – Educational website that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use. Learn from over 542 courses.
3. The University of Reddit – The free university of Reddit.
4. UDACITY – Advance your education and career through project-based online classes, mainly focused around computer, data science and mathematics.
5. MIT Open CourseWare – Free access to quite a few MIT courses that are on par with what you’d expect from MIT.
6. Open Culture – Compendium of free learning resources, including courses, textbooks, and videos/films.
7. No Excuse List – Huge list of websites to learn from.
8. Open YALE Courses – Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript formats. Registration is not required
9. Khan Academy – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science.
10. Zooniverse – Take part in a huge variety of interesting studies of nature, science, and culture.
11. TUFTS Open CourseWare – Tufts OpenCourseWare is part of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course content for everyone online. Tufts’ course offerings demonstrate the University’s strength in the life sciences in addition to its multidisciplinary approach, international perspective and underlying ethic of service to its local, national and international communities.
12. How Stuff Works? – More scientific lessons and explanations than you could sort through in an entire year.
13. Harvard Medical School Open Courseware The mission of the Harvard Medical School Open Courseware Initiative is to exchange knowledge from the Harvard community of scholars to other academic institutions, prospective students, and the general public.
14. VideoLectures.NET – the title says it all – amazing video lectures on many topics.
15. TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.
16. Shodor – A non-profit research and education organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and math education, specifically trough the use of modeling and simulation technologies. Included in this site are instructional resources, software, interactive lessons, explorations and information about workshops for students, teachers and learners of all ages on mathematics and science. Make sure you check Shodor Interactive – a great collection of interactive math, geometry, fractal, probability, algebra and statistics activities.
17. Udemy FREE Courses – hundreds of experts teach on Udemy every month including New York Times best-selling authors, CEOs, Ivy League professionals and celebrity instructors. Courses include video, live lectures and tools to help teachers interact with students and track their progress. There are many free courses that can teach you business online, law, programming, design, mathematics, science, photography, yoga and many more.
18. Maths & Science – Courses, tests and learning materials about mathematics and science for students from 1 to 12 grade.
19. edX.org – Free courses designed specifically for interactive study via the web, provided by MIT, Harvard, Barkley, Georgetown, Boston University, University of Washington, Karolinska Institute, Kyoto University and many more.
20. iTunes U – Apple’s free app that gives students mobile access to many courses. It offers many free video courses, books, presentations and audio lectures.
21. Liberty Classroom – Owned by bestselling author Tom Woods. Offers some free courses in history and economics, but at the price of one movie ticket a month you can gain access to a lot of useful information. Not completely free, but totally worth it…
22. Drawspace – Hundreds of free drawing lessons.
23. Codeacademy – Easy way to learn how to code. It’s interactive, fun and you can do it with your friends.
24. Duke U – Duke offers variety of free courses on iTunesU.
25. Scitable – A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetic, the study of evolution, variation and the rich complexity of living organisms.
26. My own business – Offers free online business administration course that would be beneficial to new managers and to anyone who is interested in starting a business.
27. Kutztown University’s free courses – The Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s Small Business Development Center offers more than 80 free business online learning. Kutztown’s courses are individualized and self-paced. Many of the courses feature high-end graphics, interactive case studies and audio streams.
28. Open Learn – Gives you free access to Open University course materials.
29. Free Computer Books – Free computer, mathematics, technical books and lecture notes.
30. Academic Earth – Free video lectures from the world’s top scholars.31. American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself sign language online
32. BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
33. unplugthetv – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch.
34. Lifehacker – Learn to hack life! Tips and tricks for improving all areas of your life.
35. JustinGuitar – Hundreds of free guitar lessons as well as some basic music theory.
36. DuoLingo – Learn a new language for free while helping to translate the web.
37. Layers Magazine – Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premiere Pro, In Design and After Effects tutorials.
38. Creative Flow – list of OVER 950 Photoshop tutorials to keep your skillset up to date.
39. Open2study – Open2Study delivers free, high-quality education online. You can study subjects with real value, and in just four weeks you can learn something new, explore the next step in your career, challenge yourself or simply satisfy your curiosity. These subjects are provided by leading Australian institutions, and are taught by academics and leading industry professionals who love to teach. All you need is an internet connection and the desire to study.
40. OEDb – Choose from over 10,000 free online classes

Self-Grading Homework and Tests

Two easy and great ways to automatically grade your students' homework, quizzes and tests are an add-on in Google called Flubaroo and a separate 2.0 tool called Socrative.

Flubaroo is an add-on in google drive that you can install to correct all your google forms automatically, get grades for students and then email students their grades.  The add-ons are in the top menu on drive.


If you click on this Flubaroo link, you will be directed to easy, detailed directions with screen shots from the author of the add-on.


Socrative has a more sophisticated look and allows you to easily create tests, quizzes and homework that students can take online. These will automatically be graded for you.

Here are some of the choices when creating assignments.  And here are detailed instructions for using this online application

Both Flubaroo and Socrative are easy to use and will make grading assignments, tests and quizzes more time efficient.  If you have any questions or would like help with either of these, send me an email at toni.carlson@watertown.k12.ma.us.

Pinterest and Twitter Cheat Sheets

Leandra Elion, Watertown High School reading teacher, found these excellent resources for using Twitter and Pinterest in your class.   These cheat sheets for Twitter and Pinterest help you use these apps in your classroom and with your students.  Here are a few samples of what you will find:
Twitter Cheat Sheet
Twitter 101—Key Terms
 Twitter—an online social networking platform that allows users to send and receive text-based message, or “tweets.”
 Tweets—text-based messages of up to 140 characters (letters, symbols, words, spaces, & p...
For more click:  Twitter Cheat Sheet

Tips, Tricks, & Words to the Wise*

Pinterest—a social media site that allows users to create and share virtual bulletin boards, or pinboards

Pin—an image added to a pinboard. A pin can be “pinned” from a website using the “Pin It” button or uploaded from images on a computer.

RePin—adding a pin from someone else’s board to one of your boards....
For more click:  Pineterest Cheat Sheet

Google updates Classroom

Last May, Google published Classroom, the easy way for teachers to share assignments and resources with students.  This was a Beta version with only volunteer teachers having access.  In September, Google launched Classroom to everyone using Google Apps for Education.  Now Google has updated Classroom with more easy to use features.  I know that several teachers in Watertown are using Classroom already, and more may want to try it out.

The five updates are:

• the ability to use Google Groups to invite students to Classroom, 
• sort students by first or last name, 
• mark assignments not submitted online as done, 
• export grades. 
• The update also adds additional control over discussion threads.

Are you interested in learning more about Classroom by Google?

You can get step-by-step directions of how to use Classroom by Google by clicking the below links.  Here is an example of how detailed Google's instructions are:

As a teacher, one of the first things you will do in Classroom is create a class for each of the classes you teach. In a class, you can add students, create assignments, post announcements, return reviewed assignments, and send messages to students.

Classes are interactive for students, too. They can comment on announcements that you make, share a post with classmates, or return an assignment.

To add a class:

1. Sign in to Classroom at classroom.google.com.
2. Click + at the top of the page and click Create class.
3. Enter the class name in the first text box.
4. Enter a short description in the second text box, such as section, grade level, or class time.
5. Click CREATE.

After you create a class, you can choose the image that is displayed for the class in the stream. To change the image from the default:

1. Open the class and click Change Photo at the bottom of the image.
2. Select an image from the gallery and click Pick Course Image.

Note: At this time, only the teacher of a class can change the image in the class stream.

You can also display a profile photo next to your name in both the class stream and on the class card on the home screen. Classroom uses your Gmail profile photo as your Classroom profile photo. See Selecting your Gmail picture for instructions on adding a photo.

From the home screen, you can rename or delete a class using the menu icon (three vertical dots) in the upper-right corner of the class card:

• To rename a class, click the menu icon and select Rename. Enter a new name and click SAVE.
• To delete a class, click the menu icon, select Delete, and click DELETE.

Here are links to more directions:

Sign in and get started

• Add a class
• Add a class resource page
• Invite students to a class
• Create an assignment
• Post an announcement
• Email a student
• View, grade, and return an assignment
• Remove a student from a class
• Change account settings
• Troubleshoot issues

Social Lesson Sharing: Share My Lesson

Share My Lesson is a social lesson sharing site created by teachers for teachers.  It is free and has lessons and resources ranging from Kindergarten through 12th grade as well as lessons for special populations.  They also include a data base of common core standards and resources to support them.

The site also allows you to create a log in and book save any lessons you want for now and in the future.

You can access the site here.  You can watch a short tutorial on how to use the site here.

The SAMR Model

How are you using technology in your classroom?  Here is a description of the four different ways technology can be used in the classroom.

Classroom for Google

Happy Summer Break!

Google Classroom is coming.  Below is a  a short video which will help you begin to learn what it can do.