This is a guest post by Olivia Coleman, who writes on the topics of online colleges and universities. She welcomes your comments here or at her email Id: olivia.coleman33 @gmail.com.
Having attended a brick-and-mortar institution, I remember what a crapshoot in-school lectures could be. Some were marginally interesting, others were pointless beyond comprehension, and still others were nothing short of life-changing. A delightful, relatively new online trend that is becoming further popularized through the advent of OpenCourseWare is the availability of recorded classroom lectures.
The beauty of free video lectures is, of course, the ease of access. Want to learn about the latest findings in cognitive science? Or how about brush up on basic algebra skills? Maybe you’d even be interested in viewing a more controversial lecture in which a Harvard professor discusses human nature and morality. While before, we would have to be enrolled in a school to reap the benefits of these lectures, now each of these can be viewed with a few quick clicks of the mouse.
Free video lectures not only enable you to get a full in-class experience in topics that you find interesting, but they can be very helpful if you want a different explanation of a concept that you are having difficulty understanding. For example, say you are taking a course in college-level calculus. Your textbook or instructor have a specific way of teaching the material, but you still don’t quite understand. With free video lectures available online, you can see for yourself how other professors teach the same subject matter. Since there are millions of different ways to communicate and explain millions of different ideas, you can surf the Net at your leisure to find the one method that’s right for you.
Now where to find these video lectures? There are several venues online that compile the best video lectures. Two great sites for video lectures browsing are Academic Earth and Free Video Lectures. If science is your cup of tea, then check out Free Science Videos and Lectures. This website breaks down groups of video lectures by their respective science field. You can also check out what’s available on YouTube, or you can go to different university websites that have OpenCourseWare options.
Whether you’re pursuing a degree online or at a brick-and-mortar institution, every student stands to benefit from the proliferation of online video lectures. The opening up of education online is precisely what has allowed video lectures to gain such freedom of access. Anyone who wants to learn more about anything should take full advantage of the best that eLearning has to offer.
