The Best Free Training

Kids complaining about nothing to do this summer? Then this collection of posts from The Best Free Training (originally published last December) may be worth a second look:

The First Annual Kid Stuff Collection

This is a PDF file containing 62 reviews and articles (more than 140 pages!) focusing on free training and educational resources for kids of all ages, from pre-school through college. Reviews include “hot links” so you can click & go directly to the resource’s website. Categories in this collection include:

• Fine Arts – 10
• Basic Computer Skills – 9
• Research Skills – 4
• General Learning Tools – 8
• Science – 6
• Math & Accounting – 4
• Writing & Languages – 7
• Brain Games & Challenges – 4
• Total Number of Reviews: 62 !!
• See full Table of Contents.
• Download Free Gift: First Annual Kid Stuff Collection (Approx. 1.5 MB PDF File*)
• * Requires free Adobe Reader… Click to download free Adobe Reader.

ENJOY!!

Topic: Documentary film making
Format: Notes, assignments, reading links, and samples to support of an academic class
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

If you are ready to get serious about making documentaries, this structured collection of notes, assignments, links to readings, and sample films will help you build a comprehensive do-it-yourself course in Producing Films for Social Change. No… the content is not spoon fed to you. But it constitutes a wide-ranging list of college-level materials carefully assembled by Tufts University faculty and available to you free online.

So if you’re ready to go beyond those YouTube videos, this course will help you think more deeply about Producing Films for Social Change and help you get started making your documentary masterpiece!

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Hurry! These gifts will be gone by the end of the 2008 Holiday Season!

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Topic: Critical thinking, including analysis of arguments, reasoning, fallacies, and techniques of persuasion
Format: Online text tutorial with interactive practice exercises and feedback
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

This clean, simple course will help you sharpen your critical thinking skills. And in this political season, with claims, counter-claims, talk-show rants, and opinions flying everywhere, it will help you develop the mental tools to sort through all the distortions! From the website: “The goal of Mission: Critical is to create a ‘virtual lab,’ capable of familiarizing users with the basic concepts of critical thinking in a self-paced, interactive environment.”

(Continued in Comment.)

In the last several months, I’ve reviewed a bunch of powerful free training and tools that can help students succeed in this new school year. Here’s a list of reviews you might want to check out.

General Study Support

• ZipRoad: “The Easy Street to Local Learning”
• How to Study
• Graphic Organizers: Tools for Instructors & Students [& Parents!
• Free Educational Quizzes, Games & Puzzles
• Google Guide: Making Searching Even Easier
• SAT Skills Insight: Get Ready for the SAT Exam
• ProProfs Online Free SAT Exam Study Center
• LearnOutLoud.com – Your Audio & Video Learning Resource

Computer Skills & Tools

• Free, Picture-Based Computer Tutorials
• Stamina Typing Tutor
• Basic IT (computer) Skills (ECDL/ICDL)
• e-Citizen Basic Internet Training
• Firefox + Add-ons = Power Tools for Learning! Part 1: Faster Research
• Firefox + Add-ons = Power Tools for Learning! Part 2: Save & Share Research Results Online
• Firefox + Add-ons = Power Tools for Learning! Part 3: A Personal ScrapBook for Your Training Stuff

Writing

• Technical Writing Courses from Wikiversity
• The Tongue Untied: A Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Style
• Google Guide: Making Searching Even Easier

Math & Accounting

• Math Tutorials for Chemistry, Economics, Political Science & Psychology Students
• xyAlgebra and xySolver
• Accounting Coaching & Training

Basic Money Management for College Students

• Financial Literacy

Topic: How to make and use charts, graphs, and other visual tools to help organize new concepts and learn more effectively
Format: Website with text lessons, graphics, practice items, suggested readings, links, and reference list [free registration required]
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

Ever notice how it’s easier to learn complex information if you make yourself a little chart of the key ideas? That’s the idea behind this valuable, one-hour free course: To help you make and use home-made graphics as organizers to support your learning — or to help you help your students or kids use graphics organizers so they can learn complicated topics more effectively.

(Continued in Comment.)

In my last post, I pulled together some information on Offshore Drilling and shared it. In this post (Part 3 of 3), I’d like to show you “behind the scenes” how I used the Firefox ScrapBook Add-on to organize my notes and clippings from websites in order to create that post. In this same way, you can use ScrapBook to capture, save, and organize text “clippings,” pictures, media hunks, and complete web pages related to any topic you are studying.

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