Free Learning for All
There are many free web-based learning resources now available online. These are the ones we recommend.
Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Our technology enables our partners to teach millions of students rather than hundreds.
Classes offered on Coursera are designed to help you master the material. When you take one of our classes, you will watch lectures taught by world-class professors, learn at your own pace, test your knowledge, and reinforce concepts through interactive exercises. When you join one of our classes, you'll also join a global community of thousands of students learning alongside you. We know that your life is busy, and that you have many commitments on your time. Thus, our courses are designed based on sound pedagogical foundations, to help you master new concepts quickly and effectively.
There is an official app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. There are a number of apps for Android devices, but currently these are all unofficial.
The idea is to select books that have been made into films. Similar to the Book Group we will read the selected book in our own time then meet as a group to view the film together. followed by a discussion of how faithful, in mood as well as content, the film version is to the book.
FutureLearn offers a diverse selection of free, high quality online courses from some of the world’s leading universities and other outstanding cultural institutions.
Their aim is to connect learners from all over the globe with high quality educators, and with each other. They believe learning should be an enjoyable, social experience, with plenty of opportunities to discuss what you’ve studied, in order to make fresh discoveries and form new ideas.
Courses are delivered one step at a time, so you can fit learning around your life, rather than your life around learning.
They are a private company wholly owned by the Open University, with the benefit of over 40 years of OU experience in distance learning and online education. Their partners include over 20 of the best UK and international universities, as well as institutions with a huge archive of cultural and educational material, including the British Council, the British Library, and the British Museum.
iTunesU is primarily designed to run on Apple Inc. devices. But it will run on a PC also.
The application iTunes will need to be installed and an Apple id created. Credit card details may be required to set up the id. It is possible that only UK credit cards may be accepted. However the courses are FREE and appear to be very good quality.
P3A are unable to provide advice on setting up Apple ids or iTunes. We suggest that you initially follow the link provided above. iTunesU does not run on Android devices.