14 of the Best Free Online Learning Resources
As the corona crisis continues, it’s looking increasingly likely we’re going to be locked down for the long term, which means a lot of people with time on their hands. And with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting jobs and businesses globally, there’s never been a better time to start making lemonade. I’m not talking about the drink (though that’s also nice) but taking the opportunity to upskill and learn something new. Here are just a few e-learning platforms offering thousands of varying-length, free online courses, from marketing to mental health, coding to copywriting, data science to design.
Always wanted to speak Swahili but never had time to learn? Procrastinate no longer, my friend…
edX. Open source non-profit platform offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) from top universities including MIT, Harvard and the Karolinska Institutet (which selects two Nobel Prize winners every year). edX also has a dedicated Business eLearning platform.
Coursera. Collaborates with Google, IBM and Imperial College London, among other prestigious institutions, to offer free and paid courses for all levels given by top instructors from education and business.
OpenLearn. Run by the Open University with over 900 bite-sized courses available to start anytime, from academic subjects to useful skills, as well as articles and multimedia content. And not a single elbow-patched corduroy jacket in sight (although the beards have made a comeback).
FutureLearn. Short courses, degrees and upskilling micro-credentials from leading universities and cultural institutions including the British Council, British Museum and British Library.
Alison. Over 1000 self-paced courses ranging from career development skills to academic subjects.
Malt Academy. Free online masterclasses in tech, data, business, product and marketing from the Malt freelancer community’s peer-to-peer learning resource.
Udemy. Ok, Udemy courses aren’t free, but some of them are pretty damn cheap.
Class Central. Search engine that allows you to look for MOOCs from over 40 platforms (including many of the above) and 900 international universities.
Open Culture. Curates cultural and educational media including 1500 free courses from different platforms and top universities on everything from the classics to computing. There are also free language lessons, movies, audiobooks, kid’s educational resources and more.
Many top universities also have online learning platforms with free courses, including MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Carnegie Mellon.
What are you waiting for? There’s a virology degree certificate out there somewhere with your name on it.
Kate Williams is a freelance writer, editor, translator and Director of The Writer Stuff. She left her native England for Barcelona in 2003 and never looked, or went, back. When she isn’t writing or discovering all the cool stuff going on in the city, she enjoys hiking in the Catalan countryside, kayaking on the Costa Brava, and volunteers at a local animal sanctuary. You can read more by Kate here.