September is a time for new beginnings. It’s when students go back to school and a new season begins. With the new school year, online courses become more available. There are numerous courses offered for every level of interest and encourage the concept of lifelong learning.
There are multiple online programs and courses that can get seniors a degree and increase knowledge.
AARP lists numerous e-learning sites that can help you explore your interests. Some of their suggestions include:
Academic Earth. Here you’ll find thousands of video lectures from the world’s top scholars — from Yale’s Shelly Kagan on the “Philosophy on Life and Death” to investment banker Stan Christensen and former San Francisco 49er quarterback Steve Young on “Football vs. Business Negotiations.”
YouTube. The rapidly expanding default site for user-generated video now includes an education “channel” called YouTube EDU, with content from top universities and other institutions.
Videolectures.Net. The site offers video lectures presented by distinguished scholars and scientists at conferences, seminars, workshops and the like. A project of the Jožef Stefan Institute in Slovenia, it has a decidedly international feel.
Learning center. Acquire lots of skills — from organizing your daily life to mastering Google Desktop — from Hewlett Packard’s online classes. Each class includes up to 10 lessons and may also include interactive demos, assignments and quizzes.
Howcast. Its videos run the gamut from “16 Photography Techniques” to “How to Jump-Start Your Car.” Make your own how-to shorts in Howcast’s Emerging Filmmakers Program.
TEDTalks. Since 1984, the annual conference that goes by the acronym TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has brought together some of the world’s top thinkers and doers and challenged them to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes or less. This site aggregates the best of those, including Australian science writer Margaret Wertheim’s presentation about the beautiful mathematical links among coral, crochet and hyperbolic geometry.
Health. Three trustworthy stops: WebMD’s Videos A-Z library, which has thousands of videos, catalogued by topic; HealthCentral.com’s Video Library; and the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Audio/Video Library, which includes interviews with UMMC experts, patient success stories and surgical webcasts.
Cooking. Tempting sites: “Around the World in 80 Dishes” is a series of video-based cooking classes at Epicurious.com; the Culinary Institute of America, the famous school for chefs in Hyde Park, N.Y., offers classes on its YouTube network and its podcasts on iTunes; the Food Network, allrecipes.com and the Williams-Sonoma Video Library and Look and Taste, have lots more recipes and how-to videos.
If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please reach out to us! Here at BlueStar, it is our goal to keep you and your loved ones Safe, Healthy, and Connected. We do this by offering best medical alert systems for seniors that are available on our website. These senior life health products can deliver push-button emergency help so you are never alone. If you have any questions, please contact a product specialist today at (800) 300-1724, option 1!
