As social distancing and self-isolation remain the most effective preventive measures to stop the spreading of Coronavirus (COVID-19), schools and other educational institutions remain closed in an attempt to contain this global pandemic. According to UNESCO, over 1.3 billion learners are out of school because of school closures in response to COVID-19. There is no clarity on when the schools, colleges, and universities will reopen.
As all the schools, colleges and universities remain closed distance(online) learning is now the primary mode of instruction as they are readily accessible and many courses are available for free.
If you are bored in self-isolation or want to upskill then you there are many things that you can try out.
1. Audible
Audible is a subsidy of Amazon that provides spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.
With millions of people staying at home to contain the COVID-19, audible is offering hundreds of audiobooks that are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet. Listeners can access the site from their computers, tablets, and smartphones and enjoy selections in six languages – English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese.
"We wish you and your loved one's good health and we hope that listening to a good story will offer some respite during these unsettling times," the platform announced.
2. Coursera
Coursera is an American online learning website that offers hundreds of free courses courses, specializations, and degrees in various languages. It partners with many universities and other organizations to offers online courses, specializations and degrees in a variety of subjects in Science, Medicine, Social Sciences, and many more.
Coursera gives you access to on-demand video lectures, homework exercises, and community discussion forums. The Courses offer quizzes, weekly drills, peer-graded activities and often a final assignment or test. Many of them are on-demand, in which case users can take their time in completing the course.
Paid Coursera courses provide additional quizzes and projects as well as a shareable course certificate upon completion.
3. edX:
edX is a non-profit online educational website established by MIT and Harvard University in 2012 A.D. An open-source technology platform to deliver online courses, edX is available to anyone in the world with an internet connection without any admission processes.
edX provides high-quality distance learning on various courses on liberal arts, computer science, business and many more. edX has more than 20 million students taking more than 2500 online courses and over 120 institutional partners.
edX courses are free for a limited period but you need to pay a modest fee for unlimited access and course certificate.
4. Khan Academy:
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Khan Academy is a non-profit online learning site that offers hundreds of free classes, from math, science, economics, and many subjects from elementary level to high school.
The academy provides practice exercises, instructional videos (in many languages) and a customized learning platform that empowers learners to study at their own pace.
The classes are free and can be accessed by anyone.
5. MIT OpenCourseWare
An initiative of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) makes the materials used in the teaching of almost all of MIT's subjects available on the web, free of charge.
The MIT OCW has more than 2400 courses available and the learning materials include assignments, exam papers (often with Solutions), lecture notes and video lectures. The video can also be downloaded for viewing offline.
The classes are free and can be accessed by anyone.
6. Scribd:
Scribd is an e-book and audiobook subscription service with a library of over a million ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines.
Scribd is offering free access to its library for everyone as many people will be staying at home to contain the Coronavirus.
"With millions of people around the globe staying close to home to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19, access to books and information is more important than ever before. So, for the next month, we will be making Scribd’s library — which includes millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazine articles, and more — available to anyone, free, for 30 days," Scribd CEO announced Social Media.
7. Udemy
Udemy is an online learning and teaching marketplace with over 100000 courses and 24 million students. Students take courses largely as a means of developing recreation as well as job-related skills like learning an IT and Software, Foreign Language, Music, and so on.
The classes are both free and with a fee.
8. National Geographic Kids
National Geographic Kids features animals, cool science stuff, funny pets, and many more. It has an ample amount of educational videos and articles on different animal species, and the natural world.
The classes are free and can be accessed by anyone.
