Anoop Verma
Many users are today using their laptops to access learning on the Internet. It is possible for us to discover free online learning resources in a multitude of domains, from medical sciences and social media to learning of foreign languages. This rich collection of education resources comes not only due to the initiatives taken by educational institutions and societies around the world, but also due to media companies, and private individuals.
Here is a list of some good learning resources on the Internet:
Learn Hindi Online
http://www.learn-hindi-online.com/script.php
This website is for those who want to learn to communicate effectively in Hindi. It provides you with the basics of Hindi grammar to help you reach fluency. The website also has audio recordings of native Hindi-speakers to help you learn correct pronunciation.
Learn Sanskrit
http://www.learnsanskrit.org/
The main beauty of this site lies in its grammar guide, which features thousands of exercises, more than one hundred lessons, and dozens of images and audio clips. The grammar guide will make it easy for you to understand the basics of Sanskrit. A transliteration programme is also hosted on the website to make it easy for early learners to transliterate some of the basic words and phrases.
MIT Open Courseware
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
This is the online place where world’s most famous university, MIT, publishes all its course materials and makes them widely available to everyone. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. The website is useful to both, the students as well as the teachers. Through OCW, educators improve courses and curricula, making their schools more effective; students find additional resources to help them succeed; and independent learners enrich their lives through the knowledge that is available here for free.
NPTEL
http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/
National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning is an initiative of the Government of India. Through curriculum-based video and web courses the programme aims to enhance the quality of engineering education in India. It is jointly carried out by seven IITs and IISc Bangalore, and is funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development. Content of the courses is based on the model curriculum suggested by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the syllabi of major affiliating Universities in India.
Learn English
htt://learnenglish.briti shcouncil.org/en/
There are many websites on the Internet that will teach you to read, write and speak in proper English. This free website from the British Council uses the methodology of games, stories, listening activities and grammar exercises to teach English.
Open Culture
This website brings high-quality cultural and educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. The website is basically focussed on collating in one place the enriching and free stuff that is scattered around the Internet. The whole mission of OpenCulture is to centralise this content, curate it, and give you access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it.
Harvard Open Courses
http://www.extension. harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative
The Harvard Extension School has lot of material of interest for the students, working professionals and the academic community.
SparkNotes
http://www.sparknotes.com/
If you are student of English literature, but you are unable to make much sense out of your teacher, then you can depend on SparkNotes. This website is geared to make you understand your books, prepare notes, write papers and study for your tests.
ArXiv
http://arxiv.org/
An initiative of Cornell University, this website provides more than 850,288 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics. Basically arXiv is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and statistics.
Cosmo Learning
http://www.cosmolearning.com/
Cosmo Learning is a universal portal for education. It is committed to improving the quality of home-schooling, teaching and student excellence. Designed for educators and self-learners, organised according to traditional curriculum standards, Cosmo Learning provides courses, video lectures, documentaries, images, books and other multimedia in dozens of subjects.
The Free Library
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/
For a number of years, the Free Library has been offering free, full-text versions of classic literary works from hundreds of celebrated authors, their biographies, images, and famous quotations. It also includes a massive collection of periodicals from hundreds of leading publications covering Business and Industry, Communications, Entertainment, Health, Humanities, Law, Government, Politics, Recreation and Leisure, Science and Technology, and Social Sciences. This collection includes millions of articles dating back to 1984 as well as newly published articles that are added to the site daily.
Chandra X-Ray Observatory
http://www.chandra. harvard.edu/
This website can serve as a valuable resource for those who are interested in space science. Since its launch on July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has been NASA’s flagship mission for X-ray astronomy, taking its place in the fleet of “Great Observatories.” The website provides an overview of the mission and it can show the position of hidden neutron stars and other heavenly bodies in the space.
