Lifelong Learning 2.0

Continuing with a thread that seems to be running in this week's posts, I found an article on free online learning resources that are largely not part of traditional schooling or degree programs. I found it in the non-academic publication, the AARPBulletinToday, which serves AARP members, a group of people over 50 who may or may not be retired.

The article, "How to Learn Just About Anything Online ... For Free," is a good primer about using resources to learn without enrolling, paying tuition or earning a degree.

They list what they call "smorgasbord" sites that offer a variety of subjects and providers. Those include iTunes U, Apple's online “university” of 100,000 educational video and audio files from universities, NPR stations, museums and other cultural institutions all over the world.

There's also Academic Earth with its thousands of video lectures, and YouTube (not so much for the user-generated contents as for the education “channel” called YouTube EDU), and the ResearchChannel with content from a consortium of leading research and academic
institutions. One that is new to me is the internationally-flavored Videolectures.Net with lectures from conferences, seminars, and workshops.

AARP also recognizes that not all learning is academic and includes "How To" sites like the Learning Center with topics like mastering Google Desktop, and Hewlett Packard’s online classes etc. and WonderHowTo, Howcast, and Videojug.

Besides the article being a nice list of resources and primer on eLearning for an older, non-traditional student audience, it's also a reminder of what continuing education and lifelong learning probably will look like in Web 2.0.

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