My Favorite Free Resources - Part 5: Education

Books

Music

Video

Software

Education

This is the fifth of a 5 part series exploring my favorite sources for free online resources.  Yes, it's been almost a year since part 1 was posted, And yes I'm posting part 5 out of order.  I just thought that the start of a new semester was the perfect time to write about free education sources. Enjoy!

Open Courseware Consortium  - Many Universities offer free online materials for many of it's classes, including recorded video of lectures, class assignments, tests, notes, and text.  MIT Open Coursware is probably the most popular University found in the OCC catalog.  

P2PU - Peer to Peer University takes a more traditional approach to open education.  Each semester offers a wide range of classes taught by peers.  Each class requires a hands on attitude and participation with assignments and small projects assigned throughout the semester. 

iTunesU - iTunes offers much more than music and television shows.  The podcast and University sections of the iTunes Store offer lecture recordings and power points from many of the same Universities that participate in OCC.  Including the very popular annual iOS development for beginners class.

Open Learning Initiative - I haven't tried the Open Learning Initiative myself yet. However it does seem very similar to OCC.  A great collection of online materials for the independent learner.  The Open Learning Initiative, as well as all previously mentioned educational resources mentioned in this post, offer college level course materials free of charge for no credit.

Happy New Year!

This is one of my favorite times of the year. The new year offers a fresh start, making it easy to move on from any past mistakes or failures, and start focusing on achieving the goals I have ahead of me. This year, there are three major goals I want to accomplish by the end of 2011. These goals are:

1. Finish an awesome graduate project.
2. have a Windows Phone 7 app completed and in the windows market place.
3. play my guitar in public place such as an open mic night at a coffee place.

Graduate Project

There are three major parts to my graduate project. Part 1 involves creating a simple media streaming web application using traditional javascript, php, and sql database. Part 2 involves porting this web application using standards found in the new html 5 specification. The last step is to compare any differences in performance, scalability, and development difficulty. I have some familiarity with these web technologies, however this will definitely be a learning process for me, and hopefully a good learning experience for you as well.

Windows Phone 7 App

Everyone has dreams of creating the next “Angry Birds,” and this is my chance. I have almost no experience with mobile development so this will also be an adventure.  

Guitar Performance

This one is just for fun. I started off taking lessons from my sister 2 years ago, with very little improvement since. This is the perfect chance to jump start my progress.

Tracking my progress through this blog will hopefully add the positive pressure I need to keep up the momentum needed for success. Here's to a great year!