Back to School - Learning Online

It's all about back to school today,

E-readers - Kindle, Sony Reader, and more. Students - in the very near future you won't have to lug around heavy textbooks - everything will be in one convenient portable location.
E-readers have also become extremely popular for avid newspaper readers too. Your E-reader can hold every newspaper you could ever want to read, which is a good thing - because traditional newspapers are hurting. In fact, The New York Times reported that 2008 has been the worst Year ever for newspapers ad revenue raising "serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies." At least with the E-readers - they may be able to save some of their readership base. People want to be mobile - and, e-newspaper don't use up any trees.

Speaking of books and Back-to-School, I want to share a few websites for the inquisitive mind.

Project Gutenberg - Free eBook collection
http://www.gutenberg.org

- Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Currently the collection is over 25,000 free listed eBooks.
- The founder of Project Gutenberg (Michael Hart) also invented the first eBook back in 1971. Project Gutenberg was created to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.
- when users go to the website, they can search for eBooks using author name, book title, or subject. Likewise, users can browse the whole eBook collection or take suggestions by looking through the Top 100 Downloaded eBooks list.
- all eBooks come in html and text format, allowing any computer on any operating system the ability to view them.
- the project is simple, straightforward and free! So check it out - they have everything from classical Shakespeare to surgery manuals to books on sex.

MIT's OpenCourseWare - Free online courses
http://ocw.mit.edu

- OpenCourseWare is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. The site is open and available to the whole world and is a permanent, on-going MIT initiative.
- All materials offered through this publication is free and reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT. Sadly, studying through OpenCourseWare will not get you a diploma from MIT.
- one of the greatest aspects to OpenCourseWare - besides getting course materials for free - is its audio/video library. Many class lectures found on the site have accompanying videotaped talks or class sessions.
- course assignments and exams are also available, but who really wants to do that?!
- overall, MIT's OpenCourseWare is one of the most extensive online educational portals the Internet has to offer

Encyclopedia of Life - Free online encyclopedia
http://www.eol.org

- Now I might have already talked about this website in the past, but Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is an ambitious project worth mentioning again. Comprised of scientists, field experts, and volunteers working from museums and research institutions around the world, the goal of EOL is to organize and make available - via the Internet - virtually all known information about life on Earth.
- Here's how EOL works: At its heart lies a series of websites—one for each of the approximately 1.8 million known species—that provides the entry points to a vast array of knowledge. Each entry-point is a species page designed for the general public. Once you're in a species page - let's say peregrine falcon - you'll have a list of facts about the creature including animal family, geographic distribution, evolutionary history, so on so forth. At the bottom of the page you'll also notice several links aimed for expert users.
- Remember, EOL is a huge, ambitious project so the website is still a large work in progress. Every day, more and more data is entered into EOL's database in the quest to share all information about life on Earth.

Lastly I want to talk about TED - which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.
http://www.ted.com

- This is a fantastic series of video lectures from the World's greatest minds. You'll get a front row seat to watch and listen to some of the most fascinating people on the planet. The speakers come from all walks of life such as Al Gore - talking about the environment, to TV producer JJ Abrams - of the show Lost, to Stephen Hawkins - the world's smartest man alive. This website is definitely worth checking out.

Thanks to the Internet - You don't need to be in school to continue learning.