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dowco.com News - The Internet as a Resource
By Edwin Parcero

The Internet has allowed us the chance to learn how to do almost anything online.  Online tutorials, blogs from experts, and college courses in subjects are now online and they are not hard to find.  Browsing these sites, you may find that you can learn how to do things that you had never even thought of trying.

Places to Learn

ehow.com

This is the tutorial version of Wikipedia.  It is a knowledge database populated by people from all over who post tutorials on how to do things.  If there is something you know how to do, you can post a tutorial yourself and add to the body of knowledge.  These instructions are usually text with perhaps a few illustrations.  The tutorials vary due to the public providing them - one may be vague while another is really detailed.

instructables.com

This site is designed to have the tutorial broken up into steps and for each step to have multiple illustrations.  If what you are looking to do includes many complex stages, this site would be a better bet than ehow.com.  You can also sign up and create tutorials for others if you find a gap in the tutorials offered.

learnthat.com

A site with a professional staff creating tutorials.  Fewer tutorials than the others, but professionally put together.  Covering home, internet, business and lifestyle tutorials, this covers a large range of things to learn.

videojug.com

From England comes a video tutorial site on everything from pub tricks to changing a door lock.  It has a large list of tutorials broken down by category and with a features front page that lists some of the more interesting videos.

Learn from Experts

The best way to learn is from the experts.  But how do you find them?  One way is to put your search in a search engine such as Google or Yahoo and add the word "pro" afterwards.  For example, "photography pro” or "bowling pro" will refine your search.

Another way to find information on a subject is to locate someone blogging on that subject.  You would add the word "blog" to your searches.  For example, "photography blog” or "bowling blog"

Online Courses

Many places of learning are now posting materials and information for courses online. If there is a subject you want to learn about, it can be found either doing a search for "online adult learning" or taking a look at some of these sites.  If all you want is to know the subject you can learn for free.

If you want credit for a degree, you will of course probably need to pay for the course.

The University of Texas - World Lecture Hall


      http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh


      Free courses in audio or video formats.

MIT Open Courseware


      http://ocw.mit.edu


      online course materials, that unzip into a web page offering links to video and audio as well as containing the course material.


      These are some pretty heavy lessons.

Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative


      http://www.cmu.edu/oli/


      Similar to the MIT site, it's still in testing and has less material.