General E-Learning Blogs

If you have a passion for learning, you can take advantage of these e-learning blogs that offer tips, techniques and valuable resources for those who are interested in self-directed learning using the power of the Internet.

1. Moving at the Speed of Creativity presents information and helpful podcasts on more effective e-learning.
2. Internet Time Blog provides helpful e-learning resources. This is especially geared at business e-learning, but is useful nonetheless for all online learners.
3. Clive on Learning offers an insightful look about learning, and provides helpful hints to improving the way you engage in self-directed learning.
4. elearnspace looks at the way people learn, and offers resources and news about e-learning.
5. Learning and Technology offers an interesting look at how technology can help us be better learners. This blog includes information and resources, as well as discussion, on e-learning.
6. E-Learning Queen focuses on how it is possible to use the Internet as a learning tool and resource.
7. Stephen’s Web contains a number of interesting resources and information on e-learning and self-directed education.
8. XplanaZine provides a contemporary look at education and learning online.
9. Learning Reflections presents thoughtful posts and analysis on e-learning, and offers resources and help.
10. Online Education Blog is a resource that provides information on online colleges, degrees and learning.

Learning Theory

Technology has allowed us to advance in the way we think about learning. The reason that you learn differently from someone else may have bearing on how you perform. Online learning allows you to learn in a way that suits you best. Here are some blogs about learning theory and e-learning.

11. Informal Learning Blog is just what it sounds like — a blog devoted to helping those learn informally.
12. Random Walk in Learning focuses on the ideas behind learning, and how to apply thoughts on learning to self-directed education.
13. 2 Cents Worth provides insight into how the current landscape affects learning.
14. Learning Curves offers insight into the different ways that we learn, and how to learn according to our individual needs.
15. abject learning looks at social learning and the impact it can have on how effectively we receive education.
16. Learnlets provides interesting observations on information processing and other issues related to online education.
17. The Stingy Scholar offers information and resources on how you can learn on your own, for free, using the Internet.
18. McGee’s Musings focuses on learning innovation and how to improve the way we learn.

Technology and Online Education

Technology offers amazing opportunities to enhance the way we learn. Even more traditional learning set-ups can use technology to engage in online education. Here are some blogs about online education technology.

19. Remote Access offers some helpful information on technology that can help any number of people access education resources, no matter where they are.
20. Ed-Tech Insider provides helpful information for those who are looking for ways to incorporate online education into the learning environment.
21. Weblogg-ed focuses on how online learning can complement other types of learning.
22. Derek’s Blog looks at how technology can impact learning, and how it can enhance education.
23. The Tech Savvy Educator contains a wealth of information on integrating online education with offline learning.
24. Beth’s Thoughts on Technology in Education offers a great deal of information on learning and how online education tools can help increase the efficiency.
25. A Teacher’s Life follows a teacher in her efforts to use online learning and technology to enhance learning in the offline world.
26. The Thinking Stick provides information on online technology and how it can improve the classroom learning experience.
27. Infomancy offers tips on how to find learning tools and information using online means.
28. Techlearning Blog contains resources and insights into online education and learning.

Internet Tools and Online Education

If you are looking for Internet tools that can help you better employ online education and learning, you can visit these blogs to find out more about what’s available to you.

29. Bionic Teaching offers information on Internet tools and resources that you can use in your e-learning efforts.
30. learning.now provides excellent tools and information focused on online education. Hosted by PBS.
31. Leigh Blackall focuses on offering up Internet tools that can help with your online education.
32. absolutely intercultural! is a blog/podcast focusing on intercultural issues in education, and providing great tools and resources for e-learners.
33. Infinite Teaching Machine contains tools and resources for online learning and education. Indludes multimedia.
34. Full Circle Interaction Blog looks at the skills and tools necessary to collaborate for online learning, as well as offline learning.
35. Digital Writing, Digital Teaching focuses on using the Internet for learning about writing and redading. Offers a number of tools and resources.

Online Education Help for Teachers

Teachers often need help when preparing lessons. Whether teaching Internet courses, or teaching in the “real” world, online education resources can be very helpful for teachers.

36. The Open Classroom provides insight and information on online learning and teaching methods.
37. Wicked Decent Learning offers tips and techniques for using technology and the Internet for more effective teaching.
38. A Difference focuses on making changes to math education, providing a great online resource for teachers.
39. Infocult contains information on trends in education and tips for teachers on how to implement learning strategies.
40. Artichoke provides helpful information and insight education, and includes some great online tools for teachers.
41. Cool Cat Teacher Blog offers information on how to use new tools and methods as a teacher.
42. Teachers Teaching Teachers is a place where educators can meet online to share information, tools and methods.
43. dougbelshaw.com provides education technology tools and information, as well as resources for teachers.

Education Policy and News

Find out the latest goings on in education. These great blogs offer insight into education policy and news — including some of the latest happenings in online education.

44. D-Ed Reckoning offers a look at instruction practices and education policy.
45. Practical Theory looks at the way things are in classrooms and offers insight on how some education problems can be fixed.
46. Change Agency focuses on reinventing education — including how it can be changed by the Internet and other technology.
47. Education Intelligence Agency provides a look at different influences in education, including the impact of online education.
48. Schools Matter looks at the issues that affect education policy. It even explores the purpose of schools and even suggests different alternatives.
49. This Week in Education offers regular updates on what’s going on in the world of online, and offline, education.
50. Eduwonk follows the latest education developments and provides commentary on policy.

All links under the categories below are listed in alphabetical order. This alphabetical method of organization also shows that we do not value open courseware project over another.

Directories

The following directories have done the work for you, discovering various open courseware projects from around the world or that are focused on one specific area of study. You can find books, video lectures, teaching tools and more, all labeled with the open courseware tag.

1. 70+ Apps, Search Engines and Resources for Free Learning: You can find many open courseware projects through this directory, which lists search engines and directories, collections and more.
2. 100 Free Open Courseware Classes About Open Source Everything : This list provides links to courses on Linux, Open Source philosophy, legal issues and more.
3. 100+ Open Courseware Resources for Teachers: From educational approaches and theories to Open Courseware resource material, teachers can enjoy the offerings listed in this directory.
4. 101 Killer Open Courseware Projects from Around the World: Ivy League and Beyond: This list of open courseware projects worldwide offered by colleges and universities. Course materials run the gamut from lesson plans to podcasts to video lectures.
5. 236 Open Courseware Collections, Podcasts, and Videos: Online Education Database provides an extensive list of open courseware collections in this directory.
6. American Memory: This link takes you to the directory filled with eighteen collections within the Library of Congress. This free and open resource contains a great repository of primary and secondary source materials on American history and creativity.
7. British Academy Portal: This is the British Academy’s directory of online resources in the humanities and social sciences. It is designed as an entry point to available resources for those working in higher education and research.
8. Free Online Open Courseware Directory in Arts & Humanities: Find dozens of links for open courseware in the arts and humanities here, including design, English, game art, theology and writing.
9. Free Open Courseware Directory: This list, categorized by subjects such as arts and humanities and health and medical, is offered by College@Home.
10. iBerry: Based upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states, “Everyone has the right to education,” iBerry offers their Academic Porthole and Open Courseware Directory categorized by main sites, subject and OER (Open Educational Resources).
11. MIT Open Courseware: Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a world leader in offering open courseware. Their offerings are so extensive that they’ve offered this directory to help viewers find the information they need.
12. Open Courseware Consortium: The hub for international open courseware members, this site will help you find course materials from across the globe.
13. Open Learn Learning Space Directory: Categorized by topic, this directory provides a guideline for open courseware provided by the ever-expanding Open University.
14. Open Video Project: The Open Video Project is managed at the Interaction Design Laboratory, at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This directory is building into one of the largest directories of educational videos online.
15. OpenCourseWare School Rankings: This is a list of twenty-five colleges and universities ranked by the Open Courseware. But, it’s much more: you can click on the links and each link provides more links to the actual courseware or projects.
16. OpenCourseware Swik: Keep an eye on this page as it’s constantly updated with material that is tagged with the “opencourseware.” You can find many new open courseware resources through this page.
17. Self Made Scholar: This is a list of all the Open Courseware projects produced by universities and colleges.
18. Stingy Scholar’s University Podcasts, Webcasts and OCWs: This is a cool way to find open courseware — through a map. Just find a source in the list at left, and the map will zoom in on the resource. The resource itself will have links that will take you directly to corresponding Web sites.
19. The Academic Blog Portal: This is the main portal page for the academic blogs wiki, a kind of “Invisible College” that is supposed to help make the college more visible. This categorized list provides many links to academic blogs that expound on topics from the arts to social sciences and more.
20. The Bard’s Song: The Bard’s Song serves as a directory of information on cinema and filmmaking, literature, various forms of music, performance arts such as theater and dance, and visual arts, including photography and drawing.
21. Top 100 Open Courseware Projects : This large list contains information about open courseware projects, labeled by categories from agriculture to social sciences.
22. World Lecture Hall: This is your entry point to free online course materials from around the world. Find a course, browse by area, conduct advanced searches and more.

Search Engines and Archives

Search engines provide a means to find open courseware easily. Archives, like search engines, provide easy access to materials you may need. Both types of search tools are listed below.

23. Archive Grid: Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers using ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.
24. Archives Made Easy: Find archives and search materials from all over the globe. Start in Australia and end up in Vietnam if you choose, with stops in Ireland, Mongolia and Singapore along the way. Please note that only archives that have been reviewed will appear on this site.
25. Directory of Open Access Journals : This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. They have over 1369 journals searchable at article level through the search engine or by categorized topic links.
26. Fathom Archive: This archive, provided by Columbia University, offers access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions. Columbia encourages you to browse this archive of online learning resources, including lectures, articles, interviews, exhibits and free seminars.
27. Google Scholar: Search for Web information, images, video, news and more through this popular search engine. The difference is that this particular engine is designed for research and scholars.
28. INFOmine: Search through categories such as business and economics, government information, maps and GIS and more with this search engine. This site is rapidly gaining pace is a comprehensive scholarly Internet resource for collections.
29. Internet Archive: The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, continuously adds to their digital library. You’ll discover Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, they provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.
30. Internet TV Search Engine : Looking for documentaries? Want to find online lectures? Try this search engine, a product of WebTVGuide.
31. Intute: Intute is a free online service providing access to the very best web resources for education and research. All material is evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists to create the Intute database.
32. Irish Resources in the Humanities: Although this site began as a directory, it is growing into an archival search machine. Internet sites are chosen for their information, categorized and listed. But, now you also can use an advanced search feature to discover information.
33. Librarian’s Internet Index: Categorized by topic, this search engine will help you to find hand-picked sites appropriate for scholarly research. Each topic is defined by subcategories to help you refine your searches.
34. Open Courseware Finder: This search engine belongs to the Open Courseware Consortium, and it provides an easy way to discover the Open Courseware materials you need.
35. Repositories of Primary Sources: Use this listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar.
36. UK Data Archive: This search engine is an internationally-renowned repository of expertise in data acquisition, preservation, dissemination and promotion. It serves as a “curator” of the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the UK.
37. Voice of the Shuttle: Started in 1994 as a suite of static Web pages, VoS has now been rebuilt as a database that serves content dynamically on the Web. Users gain greater flexibility in viewing and searching now through categories and subcategories detailed in outline format.
38. World Public Library: This site provides a full text search of 75,000+ HTML eBooks. Stay tuned, as each year the World Public Library nearly doubles its entire digital holdings.

Web Tools

Open courseware leads to eLearning, which in turn leads to the need for tools that are open source or free to use. The follow list, which by no means taps the depth of online offerings, provides a broad range of Web tools that can help teachers, parents and students of any age. Find teaching hubs, free books and more below.

39. BBC Learning: Although this tool is based upon a corporate environment, it is open, useful and available worldwide. It is included, as the advice and information available here is useful for parents, teachers and students. And, it’s free.
40. Curriki: Curriki is a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world. Help support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them.
41. Dimdim: Do you need a platform for videoconferencing, live presentations, whiteboards and Web pages? Try Dimdim, a tool that helps you to share voice and video over the Internet without a download.
42. Docebo: Docebo is an Open Source e-Learning platform (LMS and LCMS) used in corporate and higher education markets. The Platform supports 18 languages and can support different didactic models as well.
43. e-Learning Centre: Based in the UK, the e-Learning Centre is a free information resource for learning and development professionals and academics and staff developers.
44. e-Learning Guru: eLearners will have a ball with this site, as it approaches every aspect of eLearning from an open source aspect. Learn news about free Web conferencing services, video phones for virtual test proctoring and more expert analysis, emerging trends and free information.
45. Edubuntu: Edubuntu’s objective is to create an integrated and usable experience for educational users by enhancing Ubuntu with educational applications, tools, content, and themes.
46. elearnspace: This site belongs to George Siemens, Founder and President of Complexive Systems Inc., a learning lab focused on assisting organizations develop integrated learning structures to meet the needs of global strategy execution. It has grown over the past year, and it is a great tool for anyone who wants to learn about eLearning.
47. Global Network Academy: This is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose purpose is the research and development of open source tools that promote distance learning and online communities.
48. Merlot: Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues and be recognized for your contributions to quality education.
49. Moodle: Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.
50. OER Commons: OER content is made free to use or share, and in some cases, to change and share again, made possible through licensing, so that both teachers and learners can share what they know. Browse and search OER Commons to find curriculum, and tag, rate, and review it for others.
51. Open Book Project: The Open Book Project is aimed at the educational community and seeks to encourage and coordinate collaboration among students and teachers for the development of high quality, freely distributable textbooks and educational materials on a wide range of topics.
52. Open Source Education Foundation: The Open Source Education Foundation’s purpose to enhance k-12 education through the use of technologies and concepts derived from The Open Source and Free Software movement. They recently gained a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit status.
53. Open Source Living: a community-driven dynamic archive of Open Source software spanning all major platforms. The archive is the backbone of this site, but you can join a community filled with OSS enthusiasts and use the publication outlet as well.
54. Open-Site: This is a free, trusted online encyclopedia that is edited by volunteer editors. The project is growing, with categories that range from the arts to sports.
55. Osalt: Open source education thrives on open source software. Use this tool to find open source alternatives to your favorite commercial products. Browse through software categories and compare pros and cons of both commercial products as well as open source software.
56. Project Gutenberg: No list of Open Courseware tools would be complete without mention of the Project Gutenberg. You’ll find over 27,000 free books in this online library, and a grand total of oer 100,000 titles available.
57. SchoolForge: SchoolForge’s mission is to unify independent organizations that advocate, use, and develop open resources for education.
58. SparkNotes: Direct your young scholars and college students to this site, where they can gain access to study notes on topics from literature to poetry. While this site is no substitute for reading a book, users gain insight to their readings through these supplements.
59. The National Center for Open Source and Education: NCOSE exists to champion the use of Free and Open Source Software in K-12 schools, to empower teachers to be heroes to their students through the use of Open Technologies and to be the vital bridge between the United States and international Open Source and Education efforts.
60. WikiBooks: WikiBooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. WikiBooks began on July 10, 2003; since then, WikiBooks has grown to include over 34,339 pages in a multitude of textbooks created by volunteers.
61. Wikiversity : This is another Wikimedia project devoted to learning resources, learning projects and research for use in all levels, types and styles of education from preschool to university.

The following list of 50 Firefox extensions for e-Learning and researching are categorized. The categories are in alphabetical order and each list under those categories are listed alphabetically. We do not value one extension over another. Finally, each extension should be the most up-to-date modification that will engage with the latest version of Firefox 3.0.

Organizing

Cryptic notes and unorganized bookmarks are the bane of many an e-Learner and researcher. Use the following tools to organize your online research.

1. Delicious Firefox Add-On: Use this add-on to synchronize all your bookmarks in your Firefox browser and from your bookmarks page on the Delicious website.
2. Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer: Never lose a bookmark again. Foxmarks backs up your bookmarks every time you make changes. View and restore your old bookmarks on their Web site.
3. Gmail Manager: This is a Firefox extension that allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications.
4. OpenBook 2.0.1.1: This extension allows for customization of the Add Bookmark dialog. The bookmarks tree can be automatically opened and elements can be revealed or hidden. Also, the dialog can be resized.
5. Smart Bookmarks Bar 1.4.2: Smart Bookmarks Bar extension comes right here by hiding bookmarks names and only showing icons. Bookmarks display with a mouse-over.
6. Speed Dial 0.7.2.11: With Speed Dial, you can easily access your most used websites. Speed Dial enables you to view those bookmarks as thumbnails if you prefer.
7. StumbleUpon 3.28: StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.
8. Taboo 0.5.9: Have you found yourself deep in research with twenty tabs open? Speed up your searches with Taboo, which lets you save a tab session for later. It takes a snapshot of the web page, including session state information (such as how far you’ve scrolled on the page and information in forms).

Reading for Research and eLearning

Research and eLearning involves reading. Fortunately for some, much of that reading can be accomplished through online tools that allow access to news and articles. Try some of the extensions listed below for convenience.

9. aideRSS: Now Google Reader users can reclaim their time with a single mouse click to find the best content, boost their productivity and stay on top of the news. The Google Reader extension is compatible with Firefox 2, 3 and the latest version of Greasemonkey.
10. eReader 0.4: Read eBooks in Firefox, scale text size and adjust reading width for comfortable viewing. Any site can be viewed inside the eReader, so news sites can be viewed in this tool as well.
11. Morning Coffee 1.32: This tool is superb for keeping up with regularly updated Web sites such as newspapers. Organize by day and open them simultaneously as part of a daily routine.
12. NewsFox 1.0.4.1: NewsFox allows you to group your feeds as you wish, read feed content offline, update feeds when you want, 1-click subscribe with the Firefox URL bar icon, and read other feeds while updating.
13. Read it Later: This Firefox extension allows you to save pages of interest to read later. It eliminates cluttering of bookmarks with sites that are merely of a one-time interest.
14. Screengrab: Don’t have time to take notes? Grab the entire page and save it as an image to peruse later with this Firefox extension.
15. Pearl Crescent Page Saver: Try this page-saving tool as well. This tool allows Flash content capture as well as full and partial page capture.
16. Wizz RSS News Reader 3.0.0.3: A constantly improving RSS and Atom feed reader. It is fairly powerful, feature rich and is well supported.

Reference

You may have a Ph.D., but how many times have you looked up a certain word because its definition always eludes you? Try some of the extensions below for an easy cure for this malady.

17. DictionarySearch 3.0.0: Simply highlight the word you want to look up, then right-click and select “Search Dictionary for…” A new tab or browser window will open with the meaning of the word you selected.
18. Dictionary Switcher 1.0: This tool automatically toggles your Firefox dictionary based on the site you’re visiting or the language you’re currently using as you type.
19. FastDic 0.2.7: Hold the Alt, Ctrl or Shift keys and click any word in Web page. Then word is automatically selected by extension and word’s meaning page is open in new tab, new window or sidebar.
20. gTranslate 0.5.1: You can translate any text in a Web page just by selecting and right-clicking over it. The extension uses the Google translation services to translate the text.
21. Hyperwords 5.0.2: Select any word on any web page and choose from powerful commands, including references, search, translation (right in the page itself, not in a new window), conversions, email, the ability to alter the page view and much more.
22. Moji 0.9.6: An integrated sidebar-dictionary for Japanese and Chinese including kanji dictionary.

Research and Writing

The following tools include the gamut of copy-paste techniques to complete research desktop tools that may make your work much easier.

23. CiteGenie: Law students will love this one. To use CiteGenie, simply highlight the text in a court opinion, right-click and select the “Copy with CiteGenie” option. Then you can paste the text into any other program, such as your word processor, and the text will be pasted, along with the pinpoint citation for the selected text from the court opinion. Copy text with correct citations from Westlaw, Lexis, and other websites.
24. ClearForest Gnosis 1.0.2+: Gnosis immediately locates key information such as people, organizations, companies, products and geographies hidden within Web text. Currently, Gnosis automatically processes pages from CNN, Google Finance, Wikipedia, Forbes, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, BBC News and Wikipedia. If you want Gnosis results on any other page; just click the button.
25. Copy Plain Text 0.3.3: Copies text without picking up the formatting from a Web page or other document with this tool.
26. Copy Link Text (CoLT): CoLT is a means of copying both a link’s text and URL at the same time. This feature is particularly handy for bloggers, web developers, or anyone else who finds themselves writing links to other places on the web – provided the text is appropriate for the link!
27. Google Notebook: Clip and collect information as you surf the Web and organize your notes easily. This extension now has a “mini” version.
28. list.it: This tool, developed by an MIT team, is the “Latitudinal Information Scrap Trapper that Indexes Things,” a small, simple note-keeping tool for solving a big, complex task, helping you manage the tons of little information bits you need to keep track of each day.
29. QuickNote 0.6.0.4: A note-taking extension with tabs, automatic save, and basic integration with the browser/e-mail client.
30. Resurrect Pages 2.0.3: What do you do when a page is dead but you still want to see it? Use this extension to perform miracles on Web pages, links and more.
31. Ubiquity: Perform any action from definition look ups, to viewing encyclopedia entries, to adding rich content into an email, to translating a page on the fly all without leaving the browser interface, not even navigating browser tabs. Inky is a similar, but not as powerful tool.
32. Wired Marker: Wired-Marker is a permanent indelible highlighter that you use on Web pages. The highlighter, which comes in various colors and styles, is a kind of electronic bookmark that serves as a guide when you revisit a Web page. Additionally, the highlighted content is automatically recorded in a bookmark and saved.
33. Zotero: Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways.

Search:

How can you find something if you don’t look for it? The following extensions were designed to increase your search capabilities.

34. Advanced Dork: 2.3.3.3: Highlight any text, right click, and choose from over 15 Advanced Google Operators for your search. This function and many more provided by this extension.
35. Breadcrumbs 0.1.5: Breadcrumbs records your web pages as you browse and allows you to search them from anywhere. You can easily find webpages that you forgot to bookmark. Breadcrumbs security allows limited access through password protection.
36. Google Toolbar for Firefox: Enjoy a search in different languages with the ability to disable suggestions, to clear your search history, to organize searches with labels and bookmarks and much more.
37. NeedleSearch: Because of the easy and powerful Auto-add functionality NeedleSearch not only lets you bookmark this big search engines like Google or Yahoo, but also the search engines for which no toolbar exists. Includes a multi-field search, too.
38. NextPlease!: NextPlease! is a Firefox extension that allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to jump to next and previous links on search results pages, like Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and many other sites.
39. Who Is This Person? 1.1.1: Highlight any name on a web page and see matching information from Wink, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Facebook, Google News, Technorati, Yahoo Person Search, Spock, WikiYou, ZoomInfo, IMDB, MySpace and more.
40. WorldCat: If it’s in a library near you, the WorldCat plug-in will help you find it. Download extensions for Facebook, Firefox or your Google Toolbar.

Security

Research leads users into unknown Internet realms. The following Firefox extensions can help save your Firefox environment so you can browse without fear.

41. Adblock Plus 1.0.1: Install Adblock Plus now and eliminate every ad and banner on the Internet as you browse.
42. Dr. Web Anti-virus Link Checker: You want to visit a Web page but you aren’t sure about that site’s safety. Right-click the link you want to visit. In the opened contextual menu select “Scan with Dr.Web” and wait for the check result.
43. Firefox Environment Backup Extension: FEBE allows users to back up and restore an entire or partial Firefox environment, including extensions, themes, bookmarks, cookies and more.
44. FireGPG: FireGPG is a Firefox extension under MPL which brings an interface to encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of text in any web page using GnuPG. Plus, FireGPG adds some features to the Gmail1 interface to let you use GPG’s features directly in your Web mail. Great tool for hiding that collaborative work from competitive researchers.
45. SecurePassword Generator 0.5.4: Helps you create truly unique and secure passwords.

Sharing

e-Learning and research aren’t always solitary activities. The following Firefox extensions may allow you to work competently with others.

46. CoComment: Have you ever posted comments or questions on articles and blogs and then forgotten where you’ve left them? By tracking your conversation with coComment, you can see all your comments on one page and get notified.
47. Drag & Drop.io 2.0.1: A drop is a chunk of space you can use to store and share documents, pictures, etc. without accounts, registration, or an email addresses. Drops are not searchable nor are they networked; they exist online as private points for exchange between individuals or groups.
48. FireFTP: FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.
49. FireShot 0.65: This tool creates screenshots of web pages, but – unlike other extensions – this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools. These tools allow users to quickly modify Web captures and insert text annotations and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for team research.
50. Fleck – Save the best of the Web 1.2.2: Lets you add post-it notes on a webpage and share the results with others. Those “others” don’t need to sign-up with Fleck to view your doodles. Fleck adds an unobtrusive yellow dot alongside the URL bar. Click on it to open Fleck tools.

The desire to lure students into college is strong across the globe, and many colleges have learned that education no longer belongs to a select few who can afford a degree. “Flat education,” or education provided for the masses via the Internet has become commonplace over the past few years, and open courseware projects abound on the Web.

The following list of 100 open courseware projects are designed to offer readers access to supplementary materials for education. They are free (hence “open”) and available to anyone who has access to the Internet. The downside to these courseware projects is that you cannot earn credits; however, a few colleges do offer tuition-paying students a chance to earn credits by completing some projects online.

The list, which also includes a few open source libraries (for textbooks) and some directories (for open source courses only) to expand your tool base, is alphabetized, as each resource offers more than one category; however, a few resources do specialize in one genre. Therefore, we did not break the resources down into what they offered as we wanted to provide as many different resources as possible. This alphabetical method of organization also shows that we do not value open courseware project over another.

1. ADUni: ADUni.org is the Web site of the alumni of ArsDigita University. This was a one-year intensive post-baccalaureate program in computer science. The site was built to tell the story of ADU and to carry on the school’s mission of supplying free education.
2. AMSER: AMSER, or Applied Math and Science Education Repository, is a portal filled with educational resources and services. Even thought this site was designed for those in community and technical colleges, it’s free for anyone to use.
3. Annenberg Media: Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. Although the focus is on Web and print materials for the professional development of K-12 teachers, the resources are excellent for any college student. Begin with the “distance learning” tab for starters.
4. Berklee Shares: Here you will find free music lessons that you can download, share and trade with your friends and fellow musicians. These lessons are all excerpts from their twelve-week, instructor-led, online courses.
5. Berkman Center for Internet & Society: This center, located at Harvard University, has a number of online initiatives including the release of the H20 courseware software as open source project material.
6. Best Online Documentaries: If you missed Al Gore on climate change or all the episodes of Modern Marvels, you can gain access to those episodes online at this site. You’ll discover the depth of the offerings once you begin to browse.
7. Brigham Young: This university’s independent study section offers free courses in topics such as family history, family life and religious scripture study.
8. British Academy: The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902, champions and supports the humanities and social sciences. This link takes you to their directory of online resources in the humanities and social sciences.
9. BusiTalks: This link takes you to the featured videos on business topics created from corporate videos to classroom lectures.
10. Capilano Unversity: Capilano University was founded as Capilano College in North Vancouver, West Vancouver and Howe Sound through referendum in 1968. Now they offer free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world, ranging from anthropology to studio art.
11. Carnegie Mellon: This college’s open learning initiative provides free learning materials for courses such as engineering statics, modern biology, French and physics. The materials provided enact instruction for an entire course in an online format.
12. Center for the Study of the Public Domain: The law department at Duke University has compiled an amazing resource for those interested in the realm of material – ideas, images, sounds, discoveries, facts, texts – unprotected by intellectual property rights and free for all to use or build upon. This is the most amazing of all the centers and program materials offered by Duke Law.
13. Chula Open Courseware: This is the Indian Institute of Technology open courseware project. Some courses are in English.
14. College of Eastern Utah: From accounting to psychology, an online learner has access to various course tools through many departments at the College of Eastern Utah through their course list.
15. Columbia Interactive: This is the gateway to selected electronic learning resources developed by Columbia University. Browse through courses listed from architecture to science and take advantage of their learning tools.
16. Connexions: You can view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute, and the topics are wide ranging.
17. Conversations with History: Guests in these unedited interviews include diplomats, statesmen, and soldiers, economists and political analysts, scientists and historians, writers and foreign correspondents and activists and artists. The interviews span the globe and include discussion of political, economic, military, legal, cultural, and social issues that shape the world.
18. CORE: CORE – China Open Resource for Education – is on a mission to promote closer interaction and open sharing of educational resources between Chinese and international universities, which CORE envisions as the future of world education.
19. Delft University of Technology: TU Delft in the Netherlands provides high quality educational materials that have been organized into courses through their OpenCourseWare program. Their initial courses include water management, microelectronics, offshore engineering, sustainable development, nanoscience and biomechatronics. If you don’t know what any of this means, then go find out!
20. Dixie State College of Utah: Dixie State OpenCourseWare has an interesting collection of free courses that range from artificial intelligence to calculus. They also offer a full course in human development from 2007.
21. Doshisha University Open Courseware Project: The materials actually used in classes of Doshisha University in Japan are made openly available through the Internet. Courses range by schools, such as the School of Theology or the Institute for Language and Culture.
22. EduFire: Join thousands of individuals who are learning languages and preparing for exams in live, one-on-one video chat tutoring sessions. Their goal is to create a platform to allow live learning to take place over the Internet anytime from anywhere.
23. EduNet: This is the OpenCourseWare and e-Learning community site for the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training. As part of the program to enrich resources at the universities, several Vietnamese universities have used the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s free and open educational resource OpenCourseWare (OCW).
24. Fathom: Fathom’s member institutions present their immense wealth of knowledge across every area of interest–from business to global affairs, from arts to technology. This archive, provided by Columbia University, offers access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions.
25. Fulbright: FETP OpenCourseWare is not a long distance learning project, rather it is a resource for people working or studying in policy-related fields to increase their knowledge and explore new approaches to learning and curriculum development.
26. Glasgow University: It’s a bit difficult to read the course names on this page, but if you click on any link you’ll discover downloads for entire courses, lectures, RSS feeds and more from this Scottish university.
27. Gresham College: Gresham College, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1597, is an independently funded educational institution based in Barnard’s Inn, Holborn, in the center of London. They provide free public lectures by its eight professors online. The college does not award degrees or teach courses.
28. Harvard Medical School: Browse through hundreds of online resources offered by this open courseware initiative. You’ll discover everything from medical student handbooks to a number of resources under the “Virtual Patient” category.
29. HippoCampus: HippoCampus is a free, public website for high school and lower-division College Students that offers NROC (National Repository of Online Courses) content indexed to popular textbooks.
30. HumTalks: Gain access to videos on the humanities, created from various resources like the TED conference and more.
31. IBM University Relations: The IBM University Initiative helps faculty and researchers at higher education institutions worldwide use and implement the latest technology into curriculum and research. By joining, you may gain access to software, hardware, training, course materials, and more.
32. iLumina: iLumina is a digital library of sharable undergraduate teaching materials for chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, and computer science. It is designed to quickly and accurately connect users with the educational resources they need.
33. Intute: This is a free online service providing you with access to the best Web resources for education and research, selected and evaluated by a network of subject specialists. There are over 21,000 Web resources listed here that are freely available by keyword searching and browsing.
34. Johns Hopkins: From students to parents, this college’s open courseware project provides ample information about everything from adolescent to refugee health. They continue to add information, making this site one of the most comprehensive health education sites available online.
35. Learning Space: The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302). But, you can learn about anything from arts and history to technology from anywhere in the world through their online courses.
36. London School of Economics and Political Science: Listen to podcasts and watch videos of past events at LSE.
37. Merlot: Find peer-reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues on topics ranging from biology to world languages.
38. MIT: MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is recognized for innovation and discovery in many academic fields of study, and their open courseware project is considered a monumental feat in making all 1800 courses offered at MIT available online. This link takes you to their index of courses, which range from aeronautics and astronautics to writing and humanistic studies.
39. MIT World: Not only does MIT offer a vast array of online materials, they provide videos of significant events that occur at MIT. The topics range from architecture to technology, with plenty of material on the environment and history as well.
40. Nagoya University Open Course Ware: You have access to notes and materials from lectures given at Nagoya University. Most of the information you see here are usually not seen by anyone but the students of the university.
41. NCSU Open Courseware Lab: The Open Courseware Laboratory was founded at North Carolina State University in 1998 by Professor Michael Rappa. The mission of the Lab is to invent novel ways of using the Internet to promote the open exchange of knowledge within the academic community.
42. NCTU Open Courseware: This is the open courseware site for National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, which focuses on physics, chemistry and calculus.
43. Notre Dame OpenCourseWare: Notre Dame OCW does not grant credits or degrees, and does not provide access to faculty. What Notre Dame OCW does give you is open access to the materials used in a variety of courses that range from Africana studies to theology.
44. NPTEL: The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning is based in India, but is global in nature. Although the focus is on engineering, the variety of content available here can hold anyone interested in “how things work” spellbound.
45. OCWFinder: This is one of the coolest open source projects around – an open courseware finder that allows you to search for courses alphabetically and by subtopic.
46. OER Commons: This is an open educational resource that offers learning contest on topics from the arts to social sciences in the primary to post-secondary levels of education. Don’t let the primary educational matter fool you – some of the lesson plans are tough!
47. Open Content Alliance: The Open Content Alliance (OCA) is a collaborative effort of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that helps build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia material. An archive of contributed material is available on the Internet Archive website and through Yahoo! and other search engines and sites.
48. Open Educational Resources: This site, part of dgCommunities, offers educators, students and self-learners a wide range of subjects and course materials aggregated from leading schools and OER portals.
49. OpenCourse: This is a free collaboration platform for educators, but it also allows the building of communitie. For example, the HarveyProject is an international collaboration of educators, researchers, physicians, students, programmers, instructional designers and graphic artists who are working together to build interactive and dynamic human physiology course material – which you can peruse for free.
50. OpenCulture: Open Culture explores cultural and educational media (podcasts, videos, online courses, etc.) freely available on the Web, and that makes learning dynamic, productive, and fun. They sift through it all and highlight the good and jettison the bad.
51. OpenUniversiteitNederland: Open courseware projects aren’t limited to English-speaking countries. This is a global effort to make education available to all, and this project in The Netherlands is one example of that effort.
52. OpenUW: The University of Washington provides free courses in particulars such as the Civil War and in Heroic Fantasy: Tolkien .
53. OpenVault: Gain online access to important content produced by public television station WGBH for individual and classroom learning. You’ll discover video excerpts, manuscripts and a select number of complete interviews in topics ranging from the arts to social sciences.
54. Oxford Internet Institute: Find Webcasts of the Internet pioneers, scholars and regulators who have spoken at the Oxford Internet Institute, covering areas such as social media, Internet regulation, safety and security online, e-government and more. Browse by category for easy discoveries.
55. Paris Tech “Graduate School”: Don’t let the Paris part turn you off – much of this site is in English. And, the courses offered are wide-ranging, from mathematics to physics to earth sciences and more.
56. PEOI: Professional Education Organization International (PEOI) was created and is run by volunteers who believe that it is time for open postsecondary education be made available to all free of charge. All PEOI courses are developed by teams of writers, and any faculty member or member of the general public can use PEOI’s course materials at no charge.
57. Podcast Directory: This UK resource provides podcasts from over 400 channels for educational use, for teaching and learning activities with children, young people and educational professionals.
58. Princeton University Archived Lectures: By archived, Princeton means from 2008 back to 1998. The topics are various, as are the speakers.
59. Project Gutenberg: No list of open couseware projects would be complete without mention of this site. No matter which course you delve into, Project Gutenberg may have materials for you to use. There are, after all, over 27,000 free books available at this site and over 100,000 titles available at their partner, afilliate and resource sites.
60. RAI OpenCourseWare: Rai OpenCourseware is yet another milestone in Rai Foundation Colleges’s quest of bringing world-class higher education within the reach of one and all. They soon will be offering the Rai opencourseware in 10 Indian regional languages so that knowledge can reach both to the English-speaking and to the millions of Indians residing in the remotest parts of india
61. Research Channel: ResearchChannel was founded by a consortium of leading research and academic institutions to share the valuable work of their researchers with the public. Viewers access programs online via a live Webstream and an extensive video-on-demand library.
62. SciTalks: This link takes you to the featured videos on every science topic known to mankind, from corporate videos to classroom lectures.
63. Smithsonian: This link takes you to the ‘educators’ section, where lesson plans and specialized search engines can find anything you want on the Smithsonian site.
64. Sofia: This open content initiative provides course modules in the arts and Web design, along with a little physical geography for excitement. The Sofia project is an open content initiative launched by the Foothill – De Anza Community College District with funding support from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
65. Stanford on iTunes: Download courses, lecture, interviews and more and play them on your iPod, Mac or PC or burn a CD for your open courseware collection. It’s all free.
66. TED: Want to learn how to think? The ideas that flow from this site will expand you mind and lead you to directions you never dreamed about before. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). All videos are here, free.
67. Textbook Revolution: This is a student-run volunteer site that began in response to the textbook industry’s constant drive to maximize profits rather than educational value. To that end, you can gain access to numerous textbook materials online for your own private education.
68. The Assayer: The Assayer is the web’s largest catalog of books whose authors have made them available for free.
69. The Global Text Project: Do you need a textbook? Perhaps you can find it here online through this open content project. The goal is to make textbooks available to the many who cannot afford them. Or, to make them free to the many who want to read them all!
70. Tokyo Tech: Tokyo Institute of Technology OpenCourseWare (TOKYO TECH OCW) is a platform for providing free access to course materials for users around the world. And, it’s offered in English.
71. Tufts University: Tufts OpenCourseWare’s initial course offerings demonstrate the University’s strength in the life sciences and medicine. Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase (TUSK) is currently used by Tufts’ Medical, Veterinary, Dental and Nutrition Schools as well as three African, one Indian, and three United States medical schools.
72. UCIrvine University of California: The University of California, Irvine has a long history of social engagement. As a leading public research University, an important part of its mission is to showcase and disseminate the research and scholarship of the University to the public. Their online courses are varied, and range from Physics 21 to Spa Operations.
73. UCLA OID: The Office of Instructional Development at UCLA holds surprising resources. You can find Webcasts of lectures, software tutorials and publications for faculty and teachers’ aides.
74. UMass Boston: This is just the beginning of an ambitious project for the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Their open courseware already ranges from biology to special education, with plenty of material for inquisitive prospective students or faculty members.
75. United Nations University: UNU is committed to providing open access to all educational materials used in capacity development and training programs covering a wide range of topics including fisheries, geothermal energy, biodiversity, water resource management, economic and policy studies, innovation studies, comparative regional studies, software engineering and e-governance.
76. Universia OCW: This site is a combination effort among ten Spanish, Catalan and Galician universities to offer open courseware online. Other languages offered include English, French, Italian and Portuguese, among others.
77. Universidad Nacional de Columbia: National University, Columbia offers a wide array of free courses available for Spanish speaking students. Subjects that can be studied include administration, science, nursing, art, agronomy, engineering, architecture, medicine and dentistry.
78. University of Oxford Podcasts: Can’t attend Oxford? No worries. You have access to numerous podcasts at this site, ranging from art history to Medieval English lectures and more.
79. University of Southern Queensland: USQ initially is offering sample courses from each of the five faculties and also courses from its Tertiary Preparation Program. From tourism to object-oriented programming in C++, you can find it online here as an open courseware initiative for this down-under unversity.
80. University of Tokyo: The UT Open Courseware project provides access to both lectures and data at the University of Tokyo in a program that might well be called “the opening of the gates of knowledge.” While not MIT, this project is serious and growing quickly.
81. University of Western Cape: This African university is making course materials available for biology, law and their school of public health. Expect more as they grow.
82. University Surf: This is a huge free and open educational resource center for French-speaking communities throughout the world.
83. Utah State OpenCourseWare: Utah State has expanded its open courseware project dramatically over the past year. Online readers now have access to materials that range from anthropology to wildland resources.
84. UV Open: Utah Valley State College provides numerous online courses for guests that don’t include the quizzes or other complete activities. The links for most of these courses don’t work, as they’ve moved the site to a registration page where you can log in for free to examine the materials.
85. VideoLectures: The main purpose of the project Videolectures.Net is to provide free and open access of a high quality video lectures presented by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many science fields. Categories range from architecture to technology.
86. W3 Schools: Online tutorials, references, examples and even a forum to help anyone learn how to build online sites. They handle everything from HTML to ASP.NET, CSS and XML – all for free.
87. Wales University Examination Papers: Gain access to past examination papers on topics such as computer science education, English, European languages, history, Welsh history, maths and physics and more.
88. Waseda University: Rated as one of the top universities in Japan, Waseda is beginning to place their course materials online. Courses vary in whether they’re offered in Japanese or English.
89. Webcast Berkeley: What better way to learn than with your eyes closed? The Webcasts offered here range from biology to statistics, and they often broken into sections for various lectures.
90. Weber State University: Although this site doesn’t match something like MIT’s initiative, it’s a start…you can log into courses on automotive electronics and stress management or study global issues on Information Technology.
91. wePapers: This site was created to help students and “other knowledge-thirsty folks” share their wealth of information. You can read and download class notes and articles, connect with others to get help and organize your learning experiences. You have a fairly broad range of topic categories to peruse.
92. Western Governors University: You can tap into a wide range of liberal arts studies from this list on this page. Several courses, such as anatomy and physiology and language and communication provide several parts and they’re based on very recent materials.
93. Western Kentucky University: This distance-learning module provides podcasts of lectures from a wide range of topics including poetry, architecture, history and engineering.
94. WikiBooks: Wikibooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Browse through a fantastic range of categories to build your online library.
95. WikiEducator: WikiEducator aims to build a thriving and sustainable global community dedicated to the design, development and delivery of free content for learning in realisation of a free version of the education curriculum by 2015. Peruse numerous projects and content and connect with chats in a site where educators believe that learning materials should be free and open to all.
96. Wikiversity: Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
97. Wolfram Demonstrations Project: Conceived by Mathematica creator and scientist Stephen Wolfram as a way to bring computational exploration to the widest possible audience, the Wolfram Demonstrations Project is an open-code resource that uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts in science, technology, mathematics, art, finance, and a remarkable range of other fields.
98. World Lecture Hall: World Lecture Hall publishes links to pages created by faculty worldwide who use the Web to deliver course materials in any language. Some courses are delivered entirely over the Internet. Others are designed for students in residence. In all cases, they can be visited by anyone interested in courseware on the Internet. This site is sponsored by Texas University.
99. Yale: “Open Yale” courses provide free and open access to a selection of introductory courses that reflect a liberal arts education. All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript format. Registration is not required and no course credit is available.
100. YaleGlobal Online: YaleGlobal Online is the flagship publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Their aim is to analyze and promote debate on all aspects of globalization through publishing original articles and multi-media presentations. They also are developing an archive of academic papers on globalization as well as book excerpts and reviews of books on the same subject.