Meta-Filtered Educational Websites

June 5, 2022 10:44 AM

Free Learning List is a rated/reviewed list of the Internet's Best Educational Resources. "The scores attributed to these resources have been graded on the basis of effectiveness, engagement, design, and popularity/veracity; however they are also largely subjective evaluations. "
posted by storybored (7 comments total)

This is great and something I've been wanting for a long time! I have some criticism that their sections are in the wrong order for something concerning itself with education and their use of space is too tablet-ized, but maybe I'm old and tablets are an overwhelmingly popular tool for consuming this stuff. It seems like all of the right information is there anyway, so my design quibbles can take a backseat.
posted by rhizome at 11:48 AM on June 5, 2022

Oh MY.

I am really looking forward to checking out all these amazing sites. Many are sites I'd never heard of.

My latest learning delight has been using WikiHow for language practice. LOTS of articles have versions in other languages, and about 90% of the time it's a pretty direct translation, so the texts are similar enough to really learn a lot by comparing. For my stronger languages, I can start with the English and see how close I can come to the Spanish or French; for my other languages, I can start with the German or Japanese and use the English version to check my comprehension.

And oh WOW - the very first link is to the Kurzgesagt video channel, which intrigued me - is it actually in German, I wondered? So I clicked through, and no, it's all English explainer videos (still cool, but not much good for language practice). And I kept scrolling down, looking for any in German - and when I got to the bottom, I found a list of related channels - Kurzgesagt in German and Spanish and French and Japanese! I am REALLY excited about exploring those.

Thank you SO MUCH for posting this, storybored! This is a fabulous, fabulous thing, and I am so glad to know about it.
posted by kristi at 12:05 PM on June 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

Great resource, thanks for sharing!
posted by rpfields at 1:45 PM on June 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Maybe I'm missing something. I gave up on 'learn a language on the internet' a *long* time ago, and it's not where I go for music recommendations, so perhaps those are treasure troves. But looking at pretty much every other topic I thought 'so well known means best?'. I mean, really, TED and Medium are the best you can do in 'General', 2 entries out of 5?
posted by kjs3 at 1:52 PM on June 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

In the Effective Thinking category, the PhilosophyTube image needs to be updated.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:51 PM on June 5, 2022

Related: The Open Textbook Library, curated by the University of Minnesota.
posted by storybored at 8:28 AM on June 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

TED might make you smarter, but honestly, if that requires me watching a wildly overconfident white dude in a headset and a bespoke pocket-t tell me about how with just one q-tip, one line of code and one quote from a Foo Fighters song he can show us how to unlock our greatest potential, I'd rather just not be smart.
posted by thivaia at 10:32 AM on June 6, 2022 [7 favorites]