Posts tagged free online

Some more free onlines resources

A quick Sunday evening post for those who like to spend their online time learning about the most diverse things. 

Open Culture - a quick one stop shop for a wealth of online resources for language learning, interesting podcasts, free ebooks and classic films, etc. 

Khan Academy - mostly science lessons and exercises, but also has a growing collection of history, art history and American Civics, for those a bit more humanities orientated. 

Smithsonian Podcasts - One stop shop for Smithsonian podcasts (also available on iTunes, but a chore to search through. 

Archaeology, Museums and Outreach - a recently published blog post detailing the best free downloads. I’ll be adding them to the Free Museum Resources Online page in the next couple of days. 

Museum ID - Publishes a journal and has recently completed a nine-book series of which one chapter of each is available to download for free. Free!

Enjoy! And don’t forget to let me know if you find any great, free museum-related resources online that I can add to the growing list.

Professional Development and this time it’s FREE!

Back from London!

This from PastPort:

Since we’re on the topic of professional development….
The Archaeology Program of the National Park Service in conjunction with the University of Maryland offers a series of distance learning courses designed to aid archaeologists, cultural resource managers, and museum staff members in the creation of interpretative programs and the care of archaeological collections. All of the self-paced courses are free and available to everyone. The courses may be found at National Park Service Archaeology Program Distance Learning.

Here are some of the courses available:
Managing Archeological Collections
Archeology for Interpreters
Interpretation for Archeologists
Study Tour of Archeological Interpretation
Assessment of Archeology Interpretation
Caring for Your Historic Building — Online Education

An Epic Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railroad

Google and the Russian Railways recently joined forces to create a virtual tour of the historic Trans-Siberian railroad. It’s the longest railway in the world, moving from Moscow to Vladivostok, cutting across two continents, 12 regions and 87 cities. Now, you can take the six-day journey from the comfort of your own home. Through a special page on Google Maps, you can watch video of the trip unfold, as if you were a passenger, and also enjoy classic Russian literature, music and photos along the way. As you roll out of Moscow, start listening to a free audio version of  Tolstoy’s War & Peace (in Russian, of course) and ease into the 150 hour trip.

How’s that for an epic virtual journey?

Here is another “Open Learning” resource, this time from the Open University. You have to sign up (it’s free) and then you have access to a wide range subjects and short courses to choose from. It’s all there: science, arts and humanities, law, maths and stats, languages etc. The resources are multimedia and can be downloaded. What’s more, they are open source. Each module also has it’s own forum where you can discuss with others what you have learned or what you are struggling with and a section called “learning tools” offers tips and tools for those who haven’t been in education for a while and are breaking back in (or just those of who who have developed bad habits), for example note taking, where to look for info, learning journals etc. Some of the modules also act as introductions to learning and researching in a certain area (e.g. Finding information in Arts and History (LIB_1)) And for Museum people units of interest might include: Musee de Louvre (A216_1) Word and image (E301_1) Language and thought: introducing representation (AA308_3) Goya (A207_4) Reading visual images (DD100_6) Engendering citizenship (D218_6)

Here is another “Open Learning” resource, this time from the Open University. You have to sign up (it’s free) and then you have access to a wide range subjects and short courses to choose from.

It’s all there: science, arts and humanities, law, maths and stats, languages etc. The resources are multimedia and can be downloaded. What’s more, they are open source.

open learn

Each module also has it’s own forum where you can discuss with others what you have learned or what you are struggling with and a section called “learning tools” offers tips and tools for those who haven’t been in education for a while and are breaking back in (or just those of who who have developed bad habits), for example note taking, where to look for info, learning journals etc. Some of the modules also act as introductions to learning and researching in a certain area (e.g. Finding information in Arts and History (LIB_1))

And for Museum people units of interest might include:

  • Musee de Louvre (A216_1)
  • Word and image (E301_1)
  • Language and thought: introducing representation (AA308_3)
  • Goya (A207_4)
  • Reading visual images (DD100_6)
  • Engendering citizenship (D218_6)

Museum Aktuell - Free online edition of the German Museum Journal

Take a look at this free online edition of “Museum Aktuell: The Journal for Exhibition Technique and Museology in the German Speaking World”.

This month with a special edition dealing with Frauenmuseen (Women’s museums) internationally (focused on European examples, but not exclusively - US and Australia are represented too). Some of the articles are in English, but not all. Enjoy!

P.S. Two supplementary articles (one in German, one in English) can be found here.