The Best Free Training

Topic: Math and science (comprehensive) and many other topics
Format: Online videos with self-paced practice exercises, feedback, and instruction [free Google account needed for exercises]
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

This site is amazing!! Hundreds and hundreds of videos take you from the simplest math basics through the most complicated calculus and trigonometry. Broad science topics include many videos on biology, organic chemistry, physics and more.

Finally, there’s an idiosyncratic collection of other videos on topics as far-ranging as brain teasers, history, and the Geitner plan to solve the banking crisis!

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Topic: Powerful search tool & web safety rating resource
Format: It’s not training! It’s a Swiss Army knife for your web browser!
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

The LinkExtend Browser Add-On

Sometimes the best learning occurs as you ping-pong around the web, discovering new tutorials, courses, and classes for yourself. If you’re one of those restless, self-directed learners, then LinkExtend is just what you need! It will put your browser on steroids and vastly increase your chances of finding relevant, high-quality and safe websites, no matter what you’re searching for.

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Topic: Offshore Drilling for Oil
Format: Collection of informative websites and free courses
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

This post reviews a collection of good resources that can help you learn everything you might want to learn about offshore drilling for oil. It was first published in June of 2008, so I’ve updated some of the links. If you want to be an informed consumer of the news and argue sensibly about the U.S. offshore drilling policy, these materials are for you!

CLICK IMAGE ABOVE for updated review -- "Offshore Drilling for Oil: Teach Yourself the Facts Behind the Arguments" (image from TU Delft open courseware website)

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: Technical and not-so-technical info & how-to guides to help WordPress bloggers
Format: Website with many, many videos and blog posts
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

WordPress is an open source (i.e., free) blog publishing application. And it’s also one of the most popular tools used by bloggers everywhere. Both of my blogs, The Best Free Training and Inspired Project Teams, have the powerful engines of WordPress running underneath their hoods. (Each of these blogs has a different “look and feel,” since each uses a different “theme” or layout/design scheme. But both are operational thanks to WordPress.)

WordPress is also a community of hard-working and dedicated folks who create, maintain, and help each other use the many tools and add-on stuff that has grown up around this amazing application. And, as if it’s not enough that these dedicated people keep WordPress running & free, they have now launched a giant collection of free video resources for all us WordPress bloggers.

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Topic: Overviews of technology-related topics, finance, and more
Format: Website featuring ultra-brief (under 5 minutes!) videos that are uniquely animated, fun, and filled with big ideas.
Reviewer/email: Mike G – greers_pm@yahoo.com

So how much content can you cram into 5 minutes (or less) of video…. and still have powerful, clear explanations? You can see for yourself at the amazing Common Craft website! It’s recently been completely reworked and has a great, easy-to-use new interface.

If you want tight (and fun) little explanations of all sorts of complex topics, then you gotta check this site. And if you are a video producer or a trainer, you need to see what these guys are up to! They set the bar very high indeed for quick, clean, efficient, and effective training tools!

I’m a big fan of Common Craft and have reviewed several Common Craft videos on this blog in recent months. And they are all amazing, fun, and information-packed.

You’ll find links to my past reviews, as well as a complete list of all Common Craft videos available at the website, below:

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OK.  Enough is enough!

I just heard another one of those cable TV commercials telling me to “subscribe now and get FREE HD!” NOBODY seems to be telling us that we don’t need cable to get great looking, and free, HDTV!!

Well, here’s a news flash: If you live within 70 or 80 miles of your favorite TV stations (PBS and commercial), you are already able to get free HDTV right through the air! And, better yet, your free “through the air” HD signal will be the same or better (yes, better!) than the compressed HD signal those cable guys want to sell you! So take that great new HD TV set and feed it a signal from your antenna and watch it sparkle and outshine your neighbor’s cable!

Cut the Cable... & Get HDTV with Your Antenna!

For more information on this, the many new DTV stations that are on the way, as well as an overview of the DTV signal switch coming next month, check out this detailed post I wrote a couple of months ago:

• The New DTV: Four Times the Free Video Content!