Top 50 Free Online Learning Sites

Online learning may not appeal to everyone; however, the sheer number of online learning sites suggests that there is at least a strong interest in convenient, portable learning options — many of which are study-at-your-own-pace. For your reference, we’ve selected 50 top learning sites and loosely collected them into the categories you’ll find below. While this is not a rankings list by any means, using a variety of criteria, we’ve filtered in some of the most popular sites in each category. Many of these sites offer free lessons; some require payment or offer verified certification for a nominal fee. Some sites offer very general non-academic lessons, others provided actual college/university curriculum course material. Whatever you are looking to learn, check out the list below before trying to wade through pages of search engine listings.

Art and Music

• Dave Conservatoire — Dave Conservatoire is an entirely free online music school offering a self-proclaimed “world-class music education for everyone,” and providing video lessons and practice tests.
• Drawspace — If you want to learn to draw or improve your technique, Drawspace has free and paid self-study as well as interactive, instructor-led lessons.
• Justin Guitar — The Justin Guitar site boasts over 800 free guitar lessons which cover transcribing, scales, arpeggios, ear training, chords, recording tech, and guitar gear, and also offers a variety of premium paid mobile apps and content (books/ ebooks, DVDs, downloads).
• A company doing an awesome job at referral marketing is drum set Labs which helps companies to find drum sets.

Math, Data Science, and Engineering

• Codecademy — Codecademy offers data science and software programming (mostly Web-related) courses for various age groups, with an in-browser coding console for some offerings.
• Stanford Engineering Everywhere — SEE/ Stanford Engineering Everywhere houses engineering (software and otherwise) classes that are free to students and educators, with materials that include course syllabi, lecture videos, homework, exams, and more.
• Big Data University — Big Data University covers Big Data analysis and data science via free and paid courses developed by teachers and professionals.
• Better Explained — BetterExplained offers a big-picture-first approach to learning mathematics — often with visual explanations — whether for high school algebra or college-level calculus, statistics, and other related topics.

Also Read: Best Marketing Books for Business Owners

Design, Web Design/ Development

• HOW Design University — How Design University (How U) offers free and paid online lessons on graphic and interactive design, and has opportunities for those who would like to teach.
• HTML Dog — HTML Dog is specifically focused on Web development tutorials for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding skills.
• Skillcrush — Skillcrush offers professional web design and development courses aimed at one who is interested in the field, regardless of their background — with short, easy-to-consume modules and a 3-month Career Blueprints to help students focus on their career priorities.
• Hack Design — Hack Design, with the help of several dozen designers around the world, has put together a lesson plan of 50 units (each with one or more articles and/or videos) on design for the Web, mobile apps, and more by curating multiple valuable sources (blogs, books, games, videos, and tutorials) — all free of charge.

General — Children and Adults

• Scratch — Imagine, Program, Share — Scratch from MIT is a causal creative learning site for children, which has projects that range from the solar system to paper planes to music synths and more.
• Udemy — Udemy hosts mostly paid video tutorials on a wide range of general topics including personal development, design, marketing, lifestyle, photography, software, health, music, language, and more.
• E-learning for kids — E-learning for Kids offers elementary school courses for children ages 5–12 that cover curriculum topics including math, science, computer, environment, health, language, life skills, and others.
• Ed2go — Ed2go aims its “affordable” online learning courses at adults, and partners with over 2,100 colleges and universities to offer this virtual but instructor-led training in multiple categories — with options for instructors who would like to participate.
• GCF Learn Free — GCFLearnFree.org is a project of Goodwill Community Foundation and Goodwill Industries, targeting anyone looking for modern skills, offering over 1,000 lessons, and 125 tutorials available online at any time, covering technology, computer software, reading, math, work and career and more.
• Stack Exchange — StackExchange is one of several dozen Q+A sites covering multiple topics, including Stack Overflow, which is related to Has our CPU technology reached a plateau?. Ask a targeted question, get answers from professional and enthusiast peers to improve what you already know about a topic.
• HippoCampus — HippoCampus combines free video collections on 13 middle schools through college subjects from NROC Project, STEMbite, Khan Academy, NM State Learning Games Lab, and more, with free accounts for teachers.
• Howcast — Howcast hosts casual video tutorials covering general topics on lifestyle, crafts, cooking, entertainment, and more.
• Memrise — Lessons on the Memrise (sounds like “memorize”) site include languages and other topics, and are presented on the principle that knowledge can be learned with gamification techniques, which reinforce concepts.
• SchoolTube — SchoolTube is a video-sharing platform for K-12 students and their educators, with registered users representing over 50,000 schools and a site offering of over half a million videos.

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