The Lifelong Learner

Photo by HBuzacott

One of the hands-down best education resources I’ve ever stumbled upon online is OpenCulture.com. I get their RSS feed sent to my Google Reader. The reason I can confidently say it’s a great resource is because I haven’t yet deleted it from my RSS feed. A lot of times I’ll add a new blog to my Google Reader, because it’s intelligent and seemingly interesting. But then I’ll catch myself skipping over it every single day when reading blogs. And I’ll know: this is totally boring. And I delete it.

OpenCulture’s blogs are full of cultural references, links to incredible videos and documentaries, interesting tidbits of knowledge you’d otherwise never learn, and they are a great resource for snooping out free online courses. They’re a treasure trove of free stuff, actually. Free courses, audio books, movies, textbooks, lectures, language lessons, podcasts. I will probably be sourcing a lot of content for The Lifelong Learner from Open Culture because it is just that rich.

Check it out. I promise it’s not all boring stuff. There’s something for everyone. Not too long ago they posted a video that someone created that showed tons and tons of film clips of people saying, “You just don’t get it, do you?” Now that’s funny. Philosophy, religion, science, technology, social media, social phenomenons, etc.– all here.

It’s easy to gravitate to meaningless online content. Sometime you need the mental break. But I implore to find something stimulating that actually interests you online and visit it regularly. If you need a little more structure than simply reading free online educational content, consider enrolling in an online class. Do it just for you. You don’t even have to seek credit toward a degree. Whatever you can do to keep that craving to learn alive– do it!

I just prefer to get my daily dose of informative content through funny videos. Humor can be incredibly educational!