MIT's Opencourseware is a fine way to learn freely in an open resource setting.

This video series is a great way to learn the computer language JavaScript.

The first 10 are here:
I
II
III
IV

V
VI
VII

VIII
IX
X

All free, all available from home for functional educational and economic production.

Educating Yourself

Autodidact

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/07/become-autodidact-10-ways-to-become.html

Some of the greatest people in history have educated themselves to a large degree using a process known as autodidacticism. This is something that's more easily undertaken these days with the great wealth of online tools available to anyone.

Whether you've gone to college or not, you can learn just about anything these days on your own. Want to learn about the classics? Carpentry and home maintenance? Philosophy or cooking? Chess or computer programming? It's all online, and with a little bit of excitement, you can motivate yourself to learn a subject in a growing number of ways.

Why self-education? Well, besides the obvious reasons of wanting to improve yourself, prepare yourself for success, and just learn as much as you can, self-education offers a few extra benefits: you can learn at your own pace, and in your own way. You can follow your passions, and learn about things that excite you. There's no price for failure, but there's every reward for success.

How do you go about becoming an autodidact? The answer is simple: any way you want. I would suggest you set aside just a little time each day to learn a specific subject, but that really depends on your learning style. Some people learn all in one great rush: they'll stay up late hours for a few days in a row, consuming everything they possibly can about a subject. Others are overwhelmed by an approach like that, and would rather learn a little each day.

However you go about it, here are some of the best tools for the modern autodidact:

1. Wikipedia. A vast repository of great and useful articles, Wikipedia is the autodidact's dream. You could surf it for hours, days on end, or you could use one of many tools to make daily learning a breeze. One of the best is the Articles of the Day feature --sign up to get it in your email box. Another great option that I've tried is making Wikipedia's random page your home page.

2. Online Courses. Today you can learn from the best colleges and universities, from the comfort of your own home. Just a few of the online offerings: Berkeley, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame.

3. Chapter a day. Don't have time for books? Read them the easy way: a chapter a day is emailed to you or added to your RSS reader by DailyLit.com, which has a growing selection of free books.

4. Word a day. Improve your vocabulary by leaps and bounds through the FreeDictionary, which has some great features you can subscribe to,including these RSS feeds: Article of the Day, In the News, and This Day in History.

5. Take quizzes. One of the most fun ways of learning is through games and quizzes. If you do a quick Google search, you can find quizzes on just about any topic, including math, grammar, the U.S. Constitution ... you name it. Also try flashcards for effective learning.

6. Art a day. If you'd like to learn about art, one of the best tools is Your Daily Art. Subscribe to the feed, and every day you'll get a famous piece of art, along with some notes to help your contemplation.

7. Podcasts. Not a fan of heavy reading? Get your knowledge through listening. You can listen to a course while driving, while relaxing in the bath, or while your boss thinks you're working. Just kidding about that last one. Here are just a few of the
available podcasts: UCLA podcasts, Berkeley on iTunes, Stanford on iTunes, Purdue University Podcasts, University
Channel (Princeton).

8. Free ebooks. Of course, there are thousands of great books online, available for free. Read them during your spare time, print them out for bathroom reading ... it doesn't matter how you use them, they're free! Here are some sites to start you out:
Project Gutenberg, Wikibooks, Free Audio Books, Free Academic Textbooks.

9. Learn languages. Tons of language courses are available online (BBC languages, FSI Language Courses to name a couple), and you can even learn them through iTunes: Chinese, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Greek and much more.

10. Wikiversity. A growing number of courses are being offered through a great resource, Wikiversity. Also try BBC Learning.

Written for Dumb Little Man by Leo Babuata of Zen Habits

Our Department of Education is so poor that many Americans don't view education as a help. HS is so crappy and gives us such a load of HS that it's often disdained. Education, including much media, is scorned in favor of whatever relieves us of our duties to it. They may view the recombinant job market beseiged by profiteering corporations and high cost of living as a place of competition and unfairness.

Giving a people a great set of laws and society is one thing, but like any great machine it requires maintenance. Without maintenance this society divides and loses a great portion of itself to winnow.

Virtual Learning, Accreditation

I believe we have the computational ability to hold classrooms in virtual environments such as Second Life. This would provide an excellent opportunity to capitalize on virtual education and combination visual / written and hands on /virtual programs and minisets to make advanced and simple education easier.

This can make the virtual world a classroom and connect humans from every part of earth together. This can reduce the cost and disruption of education and provide many more opportunities for students and teachers.

Examine what fantastic virtual lessons Bradley has set up through Second Life, and imagine an auditorium sized virtual space/classroom filled with 500 such virtual students.

Certain tests could be taken in an environment such as this. Virtual modular programs, e.g. a surgical scenario, electrician test, or pharmacological experiment could be performed here.

It might also be logical to physics-simulate a standard human genome to make a virtual human complete with medical biology. See Human 2.0, Technopickle.

This is What We're Shooting For

"The report from Vanderbilt University reveals that complex mix includes such factors as cognitive ability, educational opportunity, investigative interest and old-fashioned hard work.

The talent and commitment necessary to develop as a scientific leader require both personal attributes and learning environments that are truly beyond the norm," study authors Camilla Benbow and Professor David Lubinski said.

Not surprisingly, the personal attributes of future science, mathematics, engineering and technology leaders reveal that it takes much more than exceptional abilities to truly develop exceptional scientific expertise," the researchers added. "


This kind of intelligence cultivation is what a school should account for. Schools should challenge their best and brightest to the extent of their curiosity. Schools should be places where curiosity goes to become filled. Interpret this in any way.

Methods of Education

It seems beneficial to acquire technical skills by opening a technical text to a topic that jumps out at the student and begin going through it despite its potentially advanced nature. Go over every term or procedure that is unfamiliar to the student in great depth and detail until it is well understood or identified. This may be a very slow way to progress through the technical text, but it will actively engage lack of knowledge in a student and give it greater context in practice, and can delve quickly through numerous fields and topics depending on the technical nature of the text.

This method can also be used in apprenticeships. The student would be given full authority of his desired post under the supervision of an affirmed position holder. For example, a student training to be a doctor would be given the position of doctor and paired with a standing doctor. They would then observe the doctor's actions and attempt to duplicate his ability. Wherever the student is unaware of what is happening or the correct action, the doctor will take command and handle the situation as a doctor would, and also teach the student what he is doing when there is time.

This is an apprenticeship, and is the preferred pretext to certification or licensure, after primary non-technical education and aforementioned technical text analysis, followed by interview or written test of the technical material. Once the articulation of the knowledge is acquired through an apprenticeship, the student is ready to take the licensure exam and become a fully trained and able skilled practitioner.

Methods of Education

It seems beneficial to acquire technical skills by opening a technical text to a topic that jumps out at the student and begin going through it despite its potentially advanced nature. Go over every term or procedure that is unfamiliar to the student in great depth and detail until it is well understood or identified. This may be a very slow way to progress through the technical text, but it will actively engage lack of knowledge in a student and give it greater context in practice, and can delve quickly through numerous fields and topics depending on the technical nature of the text.

This method can also be used in apprenticeships. The student would be given full authority of his desired post under the supervision of an affirmed position holder. For example, a student training to be a doctor would be given the position of doctor and paired with a standing doctor. They would then observe the doctor's actions and attempt to duplicate his ability. Wherever the student is unaware of what is happening or the correct action, the doctor will take command and handle the situation as a doctor would, and also teach the student what he is doing when there is time.

This is an apprenticeship, and is the preferred pretext to certification or licensure, after primary non-technical education and aforementioned technical text analysis, followed by interview or written test of the technical material. Once the articulation of the knowledge is acquired through an apprenticeship, the student is ready to take the licensure exam and become a fully trained and able skilled individual.

Methods of Education

It seems beneficial to acquire technical skills by opening a technical text to a topic that jumps out at the student and begin going through it despite its potentially advanced nature. Go over every term or procedure that is unfamiliar to the student in great depth and detail until it is well understood or identified. This may be a very slow way to progress through the technical text, but it will actively engage lack of knowledge in a student and give it greater context in practice, and can delve quickly through numerous fields and topics depending on the technical nature of the text.

This method can also be used in apprenticeships. The student would be given full authority of his desired post under the supervision of an affirmed position holder. For example, a student training to be a doctor would be given the position of doctor and paired with a standing doctor. They would then observe the doctor's actions and attempt to duplicate his ability. Wherever the student is unaware of what is happening or the correct action, the doctor will take command and handle the situation as a doctor would, and also teach the student what he is doing when there is time. This is an apprenticeship.

Cheaper Education

This just in, free tech and engineering books are available online.

http://www.freetechbooks.com/

Textbooks for schoolchildren should not cost $150 each. I can buy a book of any length at Barnes & Noble for under $50. $150 for a textbook is inappropriate.