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SOCIAL LEARNING HANDBOOK

Index


Featured Resource
The State of Social Learning and Some Thoughts for the Future of L&D in 2010


Making Sense of Social Learning

From e-learning to social learning

What is social media?
Examples of social media in learning
Formal and Informal Social Learning
Social media and 5 types of learning

Examples of social learning in the workplace


Making Sense of Social Media

Social networking  |  Social bookmarking
Blogging  |  Podcasting
File sharing  |  RSS
Communication Tools  | Collaboration
Micro-blogging/sharing/updating

Applying Social Media to Learning

Formal Structured Learning
Personal Directed Learning
Group Directed Learning
Intra-Organisational Learning
Accidental & Serendipitous Learning

A Strategic approach to
Social  Learning
Things to consider
The case for social learning
Choosing the tools
Integrated Social Learning Environment
Comparison of social software
Facebook v Ning v Elgg
Should you pilot social learning?
Dealing with sceptical managers
Social media guidelines and policies
Online community management
Measuring the success of social learning

140 Learning
How to use Twitter and Facebook for learning

Showcase
100+ Free Websites to find out about
Anything and Everything
100+ Places to Learn a Language Online

SoLEARN
Become a member, join the discussion groups and learn from one another about social learning in our social learning environment SoLEARN.

Workshops
How to build a social environment
Renovating the L&D department
 For bespoke workshops
Contact us

Blogs
Social Media in Learning
All things Elgg

Consultancy
Social Learning Consultancy





100+ Free Websites to find out about
Anything and Everything
Updated: 08 February 2010

See also 100+ Places to Learn a Language Online

This is an alphabetical list of websites which provide information and/or instruction about a wide range of subjects. The websites cover a  wide range of informational and educational topics and include general reference resources, how-to guides, wikis, how-to videos, podcasts, courses, lessons, tutorials (including open courseware), e-books as well as other reference resources and places to ask questions both online and on your mobile.

The resources are suitable for learners of all ages: students as well as workplace learners and lifelong learners - as well as teachers, educators and trainers.

  1. 5min Life Videopedia - instructional and how-to videos

    A
     

  2. Adrian Bruce's Educational teaching resources: reading games, maths games, etc for kids

  3. Alison - free global learning experience

  4. About.com - Guidance, not guesswork. 750 experts to help you

  5. About.U - Courses by email

  6. Academic Earth - Thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars

  7. AllExperts - Ask any question! Allexperts.com is the oldest & largest free Q&A service on the Internet

  8. Answerbag - Ask questions and share your knowledge with the world

  9. Anything - Learn.Anything.Network

    B
     

  10. BBC Learning - a range of online-based courses that you can work through at your own pace

  11. Becoming human - Educational resource (with video)

  12. Big Picture - The Wellcome Trust's Big Picture series is a free post-16 resource exploring issues around biology and medicine

  13. Big Think - a global forum connecting people and ideas.

  14. blip.tv - next generation TV network

  15. Blood Typing - Simulation/game to learn about blood typing.

  16. BrainHoney - a social learning environment where anyone can teach a lesson on any subject. Users can rank lessons and collaborate as they learn from each other.

  17. BrainPop (US) and BrainPop (UK)- creates animated, curriculum-based content that supports educators and engages students

    C
     

  18. Campusbug - combines social networking, online education, and e-commerce into a simple and easy-to-use online experience.

  19. Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Institute (OLI) - OLI builds courses that are intended to enact instruction – or, more precisely, to enact the kind of dynamic, flexible, and responsive instruction that fosters learning.

  20. Complete works of Charles Darwin online - Largest collection of writings by and about Darwin ever published.

  21. Computer Tutor - The BBC's guide to using a computer

  22. Connexions - A place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc.

  23. Coursefeed - The world's top universities such as Stanford, MIT, Yale and Notre Dame have made courses free and open to the public. We've aggregated this learning into CourseFeed where you can study along side learners from all over the globe.

  24. Course Hero - a Social Learning Network built to provide students and key learning partners like professors a platform to share, meet and collaborate while accelerating their comprehension of course-related theories and concepts

  25. Course Smart - distributes content from these publishers of higher education materials.

  26. Crabby Office Lady Videos - Humorous videos of Office problems

    D
     

  27. DailyLit - Choose the book you want to read.  It will show you the number of instalments to read it.  Then read it via email or RSS

  28. Diary of Samuel Pepys - Read a daily entry or a monthly summary via RSS

  29. DNA from the beginning - The science behind each concept is explained by: animation, image gallery, video interviews,
    problem, biographies, and links.

    E
     

  30. E-Books Directory - a daily growing list of freely downloadable ebooks, documents and lecture notes found all over the internet.

  31. EdSurf - The online distance education learning resource for adult students

  32. Education.Podcast.com - Education podcasts from universities, colleges, students, teachers -- everyone who uses podcasting to learn and to teach others

  33. Educator - Scholastic lecture video archives

  34. Encyclopdia.com - Verified facts, information, and biographies from trusted sources

  35. eHow - How to do just about everything

  36. Encarta - encyclpaedia, dictionaries, atlas, etc

  37. eSchola - education network to share your knowledge, ideas, and experience with everyone

  38. Experience Project - a community of everyday people connecting anonymously through their shared life experiences & passions.

  39. Expert Village - How to videos, free video clips and more

    F
     

  40. Flat Knowledge - Free online textbooks

  41. Free and Affordable Distance Education - tutorials, courses, tests, test prep

  42. Free.Ed.net - The world's largest, fastest growing, most highly regarded source of totally free education

  43. FreeSkills - over 650 free tutorials

  44. Free Tutorial For .. - Search from over 38m free tutorials

  45. FindTutorials.com - free tutorials

    G
     

  46. GCF Learn Free - The freedom to learn, what you want, when you want

  47. getDocued - links, reviews, searches and archives the best documentaries and lectures that can be found on the worldwide web

  48. Goodtyping.com - Online typing course

  49. Google Video - videos on all topics

  50. Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips to Better Writing - A podcast series on English grammar

  51. Graspr - The instructional video network

  52. Gresham College Lecture Archive - recorded lectures from Gresham College

    H

     

  53. Hippcampus - Free one-stop educational resource

  54. Howcast - How-to videos

  55. How stuff works - Online reference tool

  56. How the human brain works, New Scientist

  57. How to be a gardener - Online resource on gardening

  58. How To books - read free online books

  59. HowToDoThings - "a site that solves people’s problems"

    I
     

  60. iCue - A fun, innovative, learning environment built around video from the NBC News Archives

  61. iNatomy - iPod anatomy learning resources

  62. infoplease - All the knowledge you need

  63. Instant Anatomy - A website with illustrations of the Human Body
    to aid the learning of Human Anatomy with diagrams, podcasts and revision questions

  64. Instructables - Make, HowTo and DIY

  65. Intel Technology Wiki - Add personal anecdotes about the effects convergent technologies have had on your life
  66. intute - Free Internet tutorials to help you learn how to get the best from the Web for your education and research.

  67. iPL - The Internet Public Library

  68. iTunes Podcasts - The iTunes Store offers more than 100,000 audio and video podcasts

  69. iTunes U - Faculty are using iTunes U to distribute digital lessons to their students, e.g Stangord, Trinity College Dublin, etc.

  70. iWise - making the world's wisdom universally accessible and useful

    J
     

  71. John Locker - Documentaries and educational videos

    K
     

  72. Keybr - Online keyboarding lesson

  73. Knol - Share what you know and write a knol

  74. KnowledgeHound - The HowTo Hunter

    L
     

  75. LazyLibrary - Find books on any topic without having to worry about high page counts. If it's over 200 pages, you won't even see it

  1. Learn Origami Online - Search for diagrams and find out how to fold them

  2. LearnToDance - These online dance lessons will teach you the basic dance steps and styling for the dance style you choose

  3. Learn to play the piano - A video course

  4. Lectr.com - The knowledge sharing community

  5. Learner.org - Teacher resources and teacher professional development programming across the curriculum

  6. learners.org.uk - Online games and communities for adults and communities

  7. Learn Everything - Expert guidance from real people searching for the best the Internet has to offer

  8. LeanHub - the communities and experts to help you get ahead in education so you can get ahead in life!

  9. Learning by screencast - Using screencasts to teach

  10. Learningpage - provides a huge collection of professionally produced instructional materials you can download and print. Lesson plans, books, worksheets, and much more

  11. LearnOutLoud - one-stop destination for audio and video learning (many free)

  12. LearnThat - Free tutorials and free courses

  13. LessonBItes - Provides lessons in bite sizes (like individual tracks of a CD) so you can learn what you want

  14. LIFE: A Journey through time - Lyrical interpretation of life on Earth from its earliest beginnings to its present diversity.

  15. LitSum - Literature summaries and guides

    M
     

  16. Mahalo Answers - you can ask and answer questions on any topic

  17. MathTutor - Watch mathtutor videos on your iPod

  18. MindBites - Video instructional marketplace and publishing platform (Some free)

  19. MindZeit - helping you develop through multimedia

  20. MIT OpenCourseWare - Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT.

  21. MonkeySee - HowTo videos

  22. Morse Code Trainer - Test 1: Listen and guess; Test 2: Morse the letter

  23. Mosio - a mobile community enabling you to text any question from your phone and have it answered by real people 

  24. Moving Image Archive - This library contains thousands of digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts.

  25. Mrs Lincoln - Interactive quiz, classroom activities, an extensive bibliography, and an original theatrical play to download for free.

  26. National History Education Clearinghouse - designed to help K-12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom.

    N
     

  27. neoK12 - free educational videos and lessons for K-12 school kids

  28. netzspannung.org - an eTeaching platform for Media Arts & Electronic Culture

  29. Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci - Read a page a day using your RSS reader

    O
     

  30. Office Word 2003 demos - Screencasts of how to carry out Word tasks in Word 2007 (Others available for other MS Office products)

  31. Open2.net - the online learning portal from The Open University and the BBC.

  32. OpenLearn - free access to Open University course materials.

  33. Open Of Course - your education when you need it and how you need it. Free for you to use, edit and redistribute

  34. Open Yale - provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University.

    P
     

  35. Peacemaker - Challenges you to succeed as a leader where others have failed

  36. Periodic Table of Elements - Interactive Web 2.0 periodic table with dynamic layouts showing names, electrons, oxidation, trend visualization, orbitals, isotopes, search.

  37. Periodic Table of Videos - Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version has a short video about each one.

  38. Peter's Online Typing Course - A set of free online typing lessons and typing exercises for beginning typists

  39. Physics Games - Online Physics based games

  40. Podcast Alley - Featuring the best Podcast Directory and the Top 10 podcasts, as voted on by the listeners.

  41. PodcastDirectory - This education podcast database has been constructed and is maintained by David Noble

  42. Podictionary - Podictionary is the audio word-a-day.  For a couple of minutes Charles Hodgson discusses the unexpected history of words you thought you already knew

  43. Podiobooks - Free serialized audio books, delivered on your schedule - by podcasts

  44. ProjectExplorer - Features free virtual fieldtrips for the k-12 classroom with over 175 short videos, lesson plans, blogs, and encyclopedia-style research

    Q
     

  45. Questia - trusted online research

  46. Questioon - a social utility enabling you to pose questions to Google or Real People.

    R
     

  47. Rapid Typing Zone - Typing tutor, typing games and tests

  48. Refdesk - Fact checker for the Internet

  49. Reference.com - a multi-source encyclopedia search service

  50. Research Channel - 3,500 video titles available

  51. (The) Resistors - The use of interactive 3D technology to present a number of science equipment and experiments in an immersive way

  52. Rocket Science 101 - Interactive demo of rockets

  53. Rota Period - A new way at looking at the periodic table

  54. Rouxbe - Videos on how to create cooking recipes

    S
     

  55. SafetySkills - free courses making it easy for small businesses to provide critical occupational health and safety training, without requiring an up-front investment.

  56. School of Everything - a community of people teaching and learning.

  57. SchoolTube - provides students and educators a safe, world class, and FREE media sharing website that is nationally endorsed by premier education associations

  58. Scitable - free science library and personal learning tool brought to you by Nature Publishing Group

  59. Sclipo - helps you to teach and learn just about everything, from technology to languages or cooking, and connects you with people of common interests

  60. Showmehowtoplay - Free music lessons

  61. ShowMeNow - Packed with illustrated step-by-step tutorials, it is a witty, irreverent reference that teaches you life's most essential skills

  62. SitesALIVE - Skipper/teacher Rich Wilson shares his voyages as he sails across the world

  63. SmartHistory - This site is being developed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the static traditional Western art history textbook (Winner Webby 2009 Education award)

  64. Slideshare - presentation slidesets on many different topics

  65. smart.fm - the place you go to learn

  66. Sofia - an open content initiative that encourages the  free exchange of community college-level materials on the World Wide Web.

  67. Songsterr - Play, learn and sing guitar on-line.

  68. SoYouWanna.com - teaches you how to do all the things nobody taught you in school

  69. Sparkeo - a flexible video platform

  70. Spenglr - a free online education and test preparation site for students and adults.

  71. Squidoo - Ideas, recommendations and more computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D

  72. (The) Symphony - An interactive guide to the great composers of the finest symphonies

  73. SuTree - learn virtually everything by watching how to videos from all over the web.

    T
     

  74. TeacherTube - educational videos

  75. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) - a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

  76. textbooksfree.org - Free text books and/or course notes

  77. The Times Spelling Bee - Practise your spelling and track your progress (Webby 2009 nominee)

  78. Timeline of art history - Interactive timeline from Metropolitan Museum of Art

  79. Tourcaster - The largest online library of downloadable tours for iPods and mp3 players.

  80. Tufts Open Courseware - start of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course content for everyone online.

  81. Turning the pages - Leaf the great books at the British Museum

  82. typeonline.co.uk - A structured touch typing course for motivated individuals looking to develop their keyboard skills

  83. Typing Web - free online typing tutor & keyboarding tutorial for typists of all ages. All skill levels will benefit from TypingWeb's free keyboarding lessons.

  84. TV Lesson - How to videos

  85. Twittez - a simple Twitter application that lets you get your answers from fellow Twitters, all you have to do is tweet with "does anyone know?" with your question

    U
     

  86. UMass Boston OCW - free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners world wide.

  87. Universal Leonardo - Programme aimed at deepening our understanding of Leonardo da Vinci through a series of European exhibitions (2006), scientific research and web-based resources.

  88. University of the People - is the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution and will open its virtual doors in April 2009

  89. Unnecessary Knowledge - for entertaining facts and information (which might or might not be true!)

  90. U-Now - University of Nottingham’s formal open courseware initiative

  91. University of Southern Queensland OpenCourseWare - provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world

  92. Ustream - watch live broadcasts, explore networks ranging from music, talk shows, sports and politics and/or review our past broadcasts.

  93. U-Now - University of Nottingham’s formal open courseware initiative

  94. University of Southern Queensland OpenCourseWare - provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world

  95. Ustream - watch live broadcasts, explore networks ranging from music, talk shows, sports and politics and/or review our past broadcasts.

    V
     

  96. Vidal Sassoon Hair Styling videos - find out how to style your hair

  97. Video Jug - Life explained. On film.

  98. Video-tutes - Video tutorials on using graphics programs

  99. Vimeo - a thriving community of people who love to make and share video

  100. Virtual Knee Surgery - flash and multimedia based e-learning

  101. Virtual Yeast Cell - This rich learning object is used to introduce yeast cytology to students taking Brewery Yeast Management

  102. Visible Body - Complete, fully interactive, 3D human body model

  103. Vocab Sushi - The better way to build your vocabulary

    W
     

  104. WannaLearn.com - Over 350 categories of free, first-rate, family-safe online tutorials, guides and instructionally oriented websites

  105. Walking - A daily email with a walking assignment, walking lesson, nutrition tip, healthy recipe and motivational tip.

  106. Webcast/Courses - free courses from University of Berkeley at California

  107. What is a print?  - Interactive tutorial

  108. We chose the moon - Relive the Apollo 11 launch

  109. WikiAnswers - a wiki-based Q&A project powered by contributors from all walks of life. Anyone can ask, answer or edit questions, building a global Q&A database, covering all topics.

  110. Wikieducator - Free eLearning content that anyone can edit and use

  111. Wikipedia - collaborative encyclopaedia

  112. WikiHow  - The how-to manual that anyone can write or edit

  113. Wikiversity - A community for the creation and use of free learning materials and activities

  114. WonderHowTo - hand-selects and curates the best instructional videos from over 1,700 websites

  115. WordAhead - Watch vocabulary videos

  116. Word of the Day - Every day you will receive an e-mail with the Word of the Day, its definition and example sentences from literary works, newspapers, magazines and other published sources.

  117. WW1 Experiences of an English Solider - The blog is is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters are posted exactly 90 years after they were written

    Y
     

  118. Yahoo Answers - ask, answer and/or discover

  119. YouTube - videos on everything under the sun

  120. YouTube EDU - aggregates all the videos from more than 100 institutions of higher education around the US.

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