Free Online Courses

I was talking to a friend at work recently about having read about free online courses put together and hosted by some really big names in academia and industry. I promised to get her a list and, once I started assembling it, thought maybe I'd post it here in case anyone else can benefit.

Although I have not personally had the opportunity to try any of these yet, they've been on my radar for a while. Some of them are accredited, many are not. Some run on pre-scheduled timelines (usually because they incorporate a social learning component), others are entirely self-paced.

Whether you're trying to expand your skill sets for career purposes, hoping to keep your brain limber, or just looking for something engaging to help make the dark days of winter go by faster, it looks like there's something for everybody in here!

Duolingo - learn another language!

Canvas Network - "Open, online courses from colleges, universities and organizations worldwide."

JTDigital - "technical skills for the digital world"  (Psst... this includes a course on 'ethical hacking!' How fun does that sound?!)

Open Culture- "1,300 free online courses"

Open2Study

Stanford University

edX - free courses from Harvard, MIT, RIT, Wharton and more on here!

(PS - If you get a chance to try any of these, please let me know what you think!!)

Hack Schooling Resources #1

It occurred to me after I wrote my previous post on my hack-schooling endeavor that it could be enlightening to track what resources I use here on the blog. Not only might introduce others to valuable resources, but it should be personally edifying and useful long term to be able to look back and survey what worked, what didn't, and where I might have some blind spots in my pursuit of learning.

So here are a few resources that have already earned their keep in this adventure:

1. Amazon's Kindle Unlimited – For $10 a month, I get as many books as I can read. They are instantly downloadable and returnable at the push of a button at any hour of day or night, from wherever I am, and I can have up to 11 out at one time. This was a God-send when I was working on my TEDx talk all summer, and I've found that many of the blogging-related books I was interested in that the library didn't have were available free through this service.

2. Sticky Notes & Good Pens– Happily, everybody took me seriously last Christmas when I told them what I really wanted was nice pens. I got a bunch of Le Pens, and they make me unreasonably happy. Paired with a giant stack o' sticky notes in various sizes and colors, they are essential to keeping my studying and notes organized.

3. White Board Clings – I don't know anyone else who has or uses these, but I highly recommend them. They're peel-and-stick, and thus far appear to be endlessly reusable. They come in a variety of sizes, and are quite durable. They're inexpensive, don't crack, easy to transport, and can be combined (lined up edge to edge) to make a larger white board in any shape you want. What's not to like?

4. Library Card – Yes, this one should probably go without saying. But in this day and age, it's worth reminding people that there's huge value in getting to be on a first name basis with your librarians and figuring out how to navigate your library's online system.

5. Simple Rules – I got a copy of this book free to review, and was surprised by not only how good but how applicable it was. I knew that research proves that working within constraints forces people to be more creative and to work harder at identifying what's really important, but this book uniquely applied that principle to how a business is run. (Though it can be equally applicable to homes, families, and all manner of other situations.)

That's it for now! Hope someday something on this list serves you well, too!

Hack Schooling

I think I first heard the term "hack schooling" a couple years ago when I listened to this TED talk. Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of the term "hack". I appreciate that for many people it has positive connotations, but it rarely works for me. In this particular case, however, I feel as if the term is the best one for what I'm doing: hack schooling myself on how to blog professionally and how to be a "solo-preneur" (another new word I wasn't initially sure I liked).


When I got my business degree a dozen years ago, the focus was on how traditional and formal businesses were run. The assumption was that most business majors would go work for Hilton or Disney or some other staid, high-end, highly professional employer. We practiced resumes, cover letters, business casual dressing, and other now-largely-obsolete aspects of corporate life ad nauseum. I'm deeply thankful for the deeply applicable background and skills I got in marketing, economics, product design/development, communication and basic accounting. I'm equally aware of just how little time we spent on many of skills I need now  like basic html manipulation, process development, and branding/materials design.

My Nutritional Therapy degree legitimately gave me everything I needed to get started, but there are so many ways to structure and run a career as an NTP that they simply couldn't dig very far into most of the behind-the-scenes mechanics. NTPs and other professionals have put together a variety of courses designed to cover these aspects, but I just can't see myself dropping $2,000 on something like that. Not when I have a business degree and a huge chunk of what would be covered is stuff I already know.

So I've decided to "hack school" myself, pulling together my own curriculum using a wide variety of free resources - books, articles, other bloggers' and professionals' tips and lessons learned, TED talks, tutorials... you get the idea! I've long believed in the power of self-education, and respected the fact that many of the most inspiring people in history - from the Founding Fathers to modern day entrepreneurs like Richard Branson - were largely or entirely self taught. I have spent enough time working alongside the higher education system (through food service and grant writing) to appreciate that I won't find what I need there anyway. With winter rapidly setting in, and the days getting shorter, it seems as if there's no better time to dig into studying.

I've already got a list of tools and resources lined up to start learning from, and a sweet friend sent me two of her top recommended books to explore. I'm staying open to other ideas as well, though, so tell me - what has touched you or blown your mind that you'd suggest I add to my list?