December 13, 2024

Watch Carl Sagan, David Attenborough, and Richard Dawkins in the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on YouTube

The Royal Institution of Great Britain was founded in 1799, and in 1825, began its annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for scientific education. Every year since then, a leading scientist has delivered a series of lectures. Since 1936, these Christmas Lectures have been broadcast on TV, making them the oldest science television series. The Royal Institution now has an archive of these lectures going back to the 1960s, with videos you can watch on their website of most of these Christmas Lectures:

Watch the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures Archive

To celebrate 200 years of these lectures, The Royal Institution YouTube Channel, has uploaded three of their most popular Christmas Lecture series onto YouTube from astronomer Carl Sagan, naturalist Sir David Attenborough, and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. We’ve added these three Christmas Lecture series to our site and have written up some reviews of them.

David Attenborough: Christmas Lectures on The Language of Animals (1973)

Sir David Attenborough is known for the nature documentaries he has written and narrated for the BBC from the 1950s to the present day (as of this writing he’s still alive at age 98!). In 1973, he gave this series of Christmas Lectures for the Royal Institution on The Language of Animals. Presented before an audience of children, Attenborough brings out many animals in his lectures to demonstrate the variety of ways in which these animals communicate. In the opening lecture, he conveys ways in which animals portray threats, usually to other creatures that want to eat them. Sometimes the animals communicate real threats, and sometimes they are “bluffing”, or communicating a threat even if they aren’t dangerous. In later lectures he explains how animals communicate attraction, young animals communicate with their parents, and then asks the question of if humans can effectively communicate with animals and vice versa. Lecture four called “Simple Signs and Complicated Communications” was lost from the archives, but the other five lectures are available to watch now on YouTube. These are enjoyable lectures on animal communication that are accessible to young and old alike.

Carl Sagan: Christmas Lectures on The Planets (1977)

Planetary scientist and science communicator Carl Sagan gave this series of six lectures on the planets in 1977, predating his popular 1980 PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by a few years. Using many visual aids, Sagan takes a look at the planets in our Solar System and their relation to the rest of the universe. He starts with a lecture on planet Earth, relating it to the other planets and analyzing it with photos from space. He emphasizes how close you have to get to really see evidence of life on Earth. In subsequent lectures, he explores the possibility of life in outer space, with a focus on the history of Mars and some of the discoveries that were being made there with unmanned space probes. In the final lecture, Sagan looks at the likelihood of billions of planets beyond our Solar System. While no extra-solar planets had been found by the late 1970s, in the past 20 years over 450 extra-solar planets have been discovered, while the possibility of life on them is yet to be known.

Richard Dawkins: Christmas Lectures on Growing Up in the Universe (1991)

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has written popular science books such as The Selfish Gene (1976), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), and The God Delusion (2006). In 1991, he delivered a series of Christmas Lectures for the Royal Institution on Growing Up in the Universe. His first lecture, entitled “Waking Up in the Universe”, gives us a sense of the vastness and complexity of life on Earth. He tries in many ways to convey the long expanses of time that evolution has taken to arrive at the present moment of life and how lucky we are to have been born as humans in this moment. He stresses the importance of science in conveying the wonder and meaning of life as greater than any supernatural explanation. In the next four lectures, he confronts the problem of design, the improbability of evolutionary success, whether life was made for our benefit, and how human brains have developed a sense of purpose in the Universe. In lecture four, author Douglas Adams shows up to read a relevant passage from his novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Enjoy these scientific Christmas Lectures and many more on the Royal Institution website:

Watch the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures Archive

August 21, 2024

Back to School with 200 Top Free Courses from Coursera

It’s back to school time and we wanted to add some new free courses to our LearnOutLoud.com Free Courses Collection, which now features over 1,100 free audio & video courses you can take online. For these new free courses, we turned our attention to the best massive open online course (MOOC) provider out there which is Coursera. If you’ve not heard of Coursera, in the past decade they’ve partnered up with more than 300 universities and companies to offer over 7,000 courses on their site (both free and paid courses). To get access to all 7,000 courses and earn certificates you can join Coursera Plus with a 7-day Free Trial at the link below:

Check Out Coursera Plus with a 7-day Free Trial

But if you want to dip your toe into this massive education resource, then there are hundreds of courses you can join and start taking immediately, absolutely free! Browsing the Coursera website can be a bit daunting as there are so many courses and subjects to explore. So we’ve done the work for you by browsing all 7,000 courses, going through them university by university, and picking out the free courses that are the highest rated and we thought would be the best for our LearnOutLoud audience.

Since we’re an audio and video learning website, we focused mostly on the courses that were primarily video learning. Coursera has great apps for iOS and Android to take their courses on and watch their videos, and you can also take them right through a web browser. Most of their courses combine videos, readings, and quizzes that walk you through the courses step by step. For our list of the top 200 free courses, we chose ones that had mostly video content.

Coursera offers tons of courses in the areas of data science, computer science, and information technology. While those are very popular courses on their site, we didn’t add many of them to LearnOutLoud currently, since our site isn’t really focused on these specific technical areas. Instead, we focused on their categories covering health, personal development, business, history, science, arts and humanities, religion, philosophy, social sciences, and language learning.

So let’s get back to school and show you this list! Note that to take Coursera’s free courses you’ll need to sign up with a free Coursera account. And we recommend downloading their free mobile apps for iOS and Android to take the courses. For many course pages on our site, we’ve added a video of the course trailer that tells you what it’s all about. We’ll list all 200 free courses by category below with the professor names and the university they’re from. We’ll start with the self development category:

30 Free Self Development Courses on Coursera:

The Addicted Brain by Professor Michael Kuhar (Emory University)

Alexander Technique by Professor Michelle Obrecht (University of Michigan)

An Introduction to the U.S. Food System by Professors Keeve Nachman, Robert S. Lawrence, & Pamela Rhubart Berg (Johns Hopkins University)

The Arts and Science of Relationships by Professor A. Ka Tat Tsang (University of Toronto)

Biohacking Your Brain’s Health by Professor Karima Benameur (Emory University)

Child Nutrition and Cooking by Professor Maya Adam (Stanford University)

Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success by Professor Peter Childs (Imperial College London)

Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Immensely Human Interactions by Professor Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks & Cheri Alexander (University of Michigan)

Everyday Parenting: The ABCs of Child Rearing by Professor Alan Kazdin (Yale University)

Finding Purpose and Meaning In Life by Professor Victor J. Strecher (University of Michigan)

Food Ethics by Professor Andrew Chignell (Princeton University)

From Sleep Disorders to Sleep Health by Professors Ronald Chervin, Shelley Hershner, and Megan Acho (University of Michigan)

Health Behavior Change: From Evidence to Action by Professor Marney White (Yale University)

Ignite Your Everyday Creativity by Professors Cyndi Burnett & John F. Cabra (The State University of New York)

Life 101: Mental and Physical Self-Care by Professor Mahtab Jafari (UC Irvine)

Major Depression in the Population by Professors William Eaton, Wietse A. Tol, and Ramin Mojtabai (Johns Hopkins University)

Mindfulness, Dignity, and the Art of Human Connection by Professor Ramaswami Mahalingam (University of Michigan)

Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential by Professor Barbara Oakley & Terrence Sejnowski (McMaster University)

The Nature of Genius by Professor Craig Wright (Yale University)

Positive Psychiatry and Mental Health by Professor Sonia Kumar (The University of Sydney)

Psychological First Aid by Professor George S. Everly, Jr. (Johns Hopkins University)

Removing Barriers to Change by Professor Jonah Berger (University of Pennsylvania)

Schizophrenia by Professor Matt Kurtz (Wesleyan University)

Science of Exercise by Professor Robert Mazzeo (University of Colorado Boulder)

The Science of Generosity by Professor Femida Handy (University of Pennsylvania)

The Science of Success: What Researchers Know that You Should Know by Professor Paula Caproni (University of Michigan)

The Science of Well-Being by Professor Laurie Santos (Yale University)

The Science of Well-Being for Teens by Professor Laurie Santos (Yale University)

Sleep: Neurobiology, Medicine, and Society by Professor Ralph Lydic (University of Michigan)

The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness by Professor Charmaine Williams (University of Toronto)

Stanford Introduction to Food and Health by Professor Maya Adam (Stanford University)

Understanding Psychosis by Professor Adrienne Lapidos (University of Michigan)

15 Free Business Courses on Coursera:

Advertising and Society by Professor William M. O’Barr (Duke University)

Brand Management: Aligning Business, Brand, and Behaviour by Professor Nader Tavassoli (University of London)

Connected Leadership by Professor Peter Boyd (Yale University)

Economics of Money and Banking by Professor Perry G. Mehrling (Columbia University)

Financial Planning for Young Adults by Professors Nicholas Paulson, Kathryn L. Sweedler, & Charles R. Chaffin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Finding Your Professional Voice by Professor Emmy Broomfield (University of London)

How to Network by Professor Klementina X. Sula (University of Michigan)

Introduction to Finance by Professor Xi Yang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Introduction to Negotiation by Professor Barry Nalebuff (Yale University)

Launch Your Online Business by Professor Joan Decollibus (The State University of New York)

The Manager’s Toolkit by Professor Chris Dewberry (University of London)

Microeconomics: The Power of Markets by Professor Rebecca Stein (University of Pennsylvania)

Narrative Economics by Professor Robert J. Shiller (Yale University)

The Strategy of Content Marketing by Professor Sonia Simone (UC Davis)

Successful Negotiation by Professor George Siedel (University of Michigan)

Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content by Professor Jonah Berger (University of Pennsylvania)

10 Free Philosophy Courses on Coursera:

Ancient Philosophy: Aristotle and His Successors by Professor Susan Sauve Meyer (University of Pennsylvania)

Ancient Philosophy: Plato & His Predecessors by Professor Susan Sauve Meyer (University of Pennsylvania)

Effective Altruism by Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University)

Introduction to Philosophy by Professor Duncan Pritchard (University of Edinburgh)

Know Thyself: The Examined Life by Professor Mitchell Green (University of Edinburgh)

The Modern and the Postmodern, Part 1 by Professor Michael S. Roth (Wesleyan University)

The Modern and the Postmodern, Part 2 by Professor Michael S. Roth (Wesleyan University)

Moralities of Everyday Life by Professor Paul Bloom (Yale University)

Philosophy and Religion by Professors Orestis Palermos, Duncan Pritchard, Mark Harris, J. Adam Carter, and Mog Stapleton (University of Edinburgh)

Philosophy of Science by Professor Michael Weisberg (University of Pennsylvania)

Reason and Persuasion: Thinking Through Three Dialogues By Plato by Professor John Holbo (National University of Singapore)

Science and Philosophy by Professors Orestis Palermos, Duncan Pritchard, Mark Harris, & J. Adam Carter (University of Edinburgh)

10 Free Religion Courses on Coursera:

The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future by Professor Jacob L. Wright (Emory University)

The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem by Professor Oded Lipschits (Tel Aviv University)

A Journey through Western Christianity: From Persecuted Faith to Global Religion by Professor Bruce Gordon (Yale University)

Religion and Science by Professors Orestis Palermos, Duncan Pritchard, Mark Harris, J. Adam Carter, and Mog Stapleton (University of Edinburgh)

Science & Religion 101 by Professor Denis Lamoureux (University of Alberta)

Soul Beliefs: Belief Systems by Professors Daniel M. Ogilvie & Leonard W. Hamilton

Soul Beliefs: Historical Foundations by Professors Daniel M. Ogilvie & Leonard W. Hamilton

Soul Beliefs: How Does It All End? by Professors Daniel M. Ogilvie & Leonard W. Hamilton

The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction by Professor Barry Scott Wimpfheimer (Northwestern University)

10 Free History Courses on Coursera:

The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art by Professor William Ferris (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

The Ancient Greeks by Professor Andrew Szegedy-Maszak (Wesleyan University)

Big History: From the Big Bang Until Today by Professor Esther Quaedackers (University of Amsterdam)

The Holocaust, Part I: Nazi Germany: Ideology, The Jews, and the World by Professors Havi Dreifuss & Na’ama Bela Shik (Tel Aviv University)

The Holocaust, Part II: The Final Solution by Professors Havi Dreifuss & Na’ama Bela Shik (Tel Aviv University)

The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry by Professors Murray Baumgarten & Peter Kenez (UC Santa Cruz)

Introduction to Ancient Egypt and Its Civilization by Professor David P. Silverman (University of Pennsylvania)

The Modern World, Part One: Global History from 1760 to 1910 by Professor Philip Zelikow (University of Virginia)

The Modern World, Part Two: Global History since 1910 by Professor Philip Zelikow (University of Virginia)

Paradoxes of War by Professor Miguel A. Centeno (Princeton University)

Reconstructing America’s Story by Professor Kermit Roosevelt (University of Pennsylvania)

Russian History: From Lenin to Putin by Professor Peter Kenez (UC Santa Cruz)

Understanding 9/11: Why 9/11 Happened & How Terrorism Affects Our World Today by Professor David Schanzer (Duke University)

Wonders of Ancient Egypt by Professor David P. Silverman (University of Pennsylvania)

10 Free Politics Courses on Coursera:

America’s Written Constitution by Professor Akhil Reed Amar (Yale University)

Civic Engagement in American Democracy by Professors Bruce W. Jentleson, Deondra Rose, & more (Duke University)

How to Change the World by Professor Michael S. Roth (Wesleyan University)

Introduction to Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases by Professor Kermit Roosevelt (University of Pennsylvania)

Magna Carta and its Legacies by Professor Emmett Sullivan (University of London)

The Making of Modern Ukraine by Professor Timothy Snyder (Yale University)

Politics and Economics of International Energy by Professor Giacomo Luciani (Sciences Po)

Reducing Gun Violence in America by Professors Daniel W. Webster, Cassandra Crifasi, Alex McCourt, and Jon S. Vernick (Johns Hopkins University)

Revolutionary Ideas: Borders, Elections, Constitutions, Prisons by Professor Alexander Guerrero (Rutgers University)

Revolutionary Ideas: Utility, Justice, Equality, Freedom by Professor Alexander Guerrero (Rutgers University)

Free Language Learning Courses on Coursera:

Chinese for Beginners by Professor Xiaoyu Liu (Peking University)

English for Business and Entrepreneurship by Professors Amy Nichols & James Riedel (University of Pennsylvania)

English for Career Development by Professors Brian McManus & Robyn Turner (University of Pennsylvania)

First Step Korean by Professor Seung Hae Kang (Yonsei University)

Learn to Speak Korean by Professor Sang Mee Han (Yonsei University)

Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics by Professor Marc van Oostendorp

Free Literature Courses on Coursera:

Greek and Roman Mythology by Professor Peter Struck (University of Pennsylvania)

Introduction to Who Wrote Shakespeare by Professor Ros Barber (University of London)

Modern & Contemporary American Poetry by Professor Al Filreis (University of Pennsylvania)

Modern American Poetry by Professor Cary Nelson (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Plagues, Witches, and War: The Worlds of Historical Fiction by Professor Bruce Holsinger (University of Virginia)

William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: Comedy, Conflict, and Community by Professors David Glimp & Kevin Rich (University of Colorado Boulder)

Words Spun Out of Images: Visual and Literary Culture in 19th Century Japan by Professor Robert E. Campbell (University of Tokyo)

15 Free Arts & Entertainment Courses on Coursera:

Age of Cathedrals by Professor R. Howard Bloch (Yale University)

Approaching Music Theory: Melodic Forms and Simple Harmony by Professor Marc Lowenstein (CalArts)

The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form by Professor Dariusz Terefenko (University of Rochester)

The Camera Never Lies: Film, Images & Historical Interpretation in the 20th Century by Professor Emmett Sullivan (University of London)

Fundamentals of Music Theory by Professor Thomas Butler, John Philip Kitchen, & More (University of Edinburgh)

History of Rock, Part One by Professor John Covach (University of Rochester)

History of Rock, Part Two by Professor John Covach (University of Rochester)

Music as Biology: What We Like to Hear and Why by Professor Dale Purves (Duke University)

The Music of the Beatles by Professor John Covach (University of Rochester)

The Music of the Rolling Stones: 1962-1974 by Professor John Covach (University of Rochester)

Music’s Big Bang: The Genesis of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Professor David E. Carlson (University of Florida)

Postwar Abstract Painting by Professor Alex Roediger (Museum of Modern Art)

Understanding Memory: Explaining the Psychology of Memory through Movies by Professor John Seamon (Wesleyan University)

Understanding the Music Business by Professor Jen Gunderman (Vanderbilt University)

Write Like Mozart: An Introduction to Classical Music Composition by Professor Peter Edwards (National University of Singapore)

15 Free Social Sciences Courses on Coursera:

Classical Sociological Theory by Professor Bart Heerikhuizen & Danny de Vries (University of Amsterdam)

Conspiracy Planet by Professor Matthew Lasar (UC Santa Cruz)

Feminism and Social Justice by Professor Bettina Aptheker (UC Santa Cruz)

From Freedom Rides to Ferguson: Narratives of Nonviolence in the American Civil Rights Movement by Professor Bernard LaFayette, Jr. (Emory University)

Indigenous Canada by Professor Paul L. Gareau (University of Alberta)

International Women’s Health and Human Rights by Professor Anne Firth Murray (Stanford University)

Introduction to Psychology by Professor Steve Joordens (University of Toronto)

Know Thyself: The Unconscious by Professor Mitchell Green (University of Edinburgh)

Living with Dementia: Impact on Individuals, Caregivers, Communities and Societies by Professors Nancy Hodgson & Laura N. Gitlin (Johns Hopkins University)

Positive Psychology by Professor Barbara L. Fredrickson (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Psychology of Popularity by Professor Mitch Prinstein (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Social Psychology by Professor Scott Plous (Wesleyan University)

Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life by Professor Peggy Mason (University of Chicago)

Understanding Violence by Professor Deb Houry & Pamela Scully (Emory University)

35 Free Science Courses on Coursera:

21st Century Energy Transition by Professor Brad Hayes (University of Alberta)

Analyzing the Universe by Professor Terry A. Matilsky (Rutgers University)

Animal Behaviour and Welfare by Professor Nat Waran, Fritha Langford, and More (University of Edinburgh)

Astro 101: Black Holes by Professor Sharon Morsink (University of Alberta)

Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life by Professor Charles S. Cockell (University of Edinburgh)

Astrobiology: Exploring Other Worlds by Professor Chris Impey (University of Arizona)

Astronomy: Exploring Time and Space by Professor Chris Impey (University of Arizona)

Bugs 101: Insect-Human Interactions by Professor Maya Evenden (University of Alberta)

Chimpanzee Behavior and Conservation by Professor Emily Boehm, Anne Pusey, & Kara Walker (Duke University)

Confronting The Big Questions: Highlights of Modern Astronomy by Professor Adam Frank (University of Rochester)

Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology by Professor Philip John Currie (University of Alberta)

Emergence of Life by Professor Bruce W. Fouke (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Extinctions: Past, Present, & Future by Professor Anthony Martin (Emory University)

From the Big Bang to Dark Energy by Professor Hitoshi Murayama (University of Tokyo)

Game Theory by Professor Matthew O. Jackson, Kevin Leyton-Brown, & Yoav Shoham (Stanford University)

How Things Work: An Introduction to Physics by Professor Louis A. Bloomfield (University of Virginia)

Introduction to the Arctic Climate by Professor Paul G. Myers (University of Alberta)

Introduction to Genetics and Evolution by Professor Mohamed Noor (Duke University)

Introduction to Mathematical Thinking by Professor Keith Devlin (Stanford University)

Introduction to Reproduction by Professor Teresa K. Woodruff (Northwestern University)

Introduction to Statistics by Professor Guenther Walther (Stanford University)

Introduction to Sustainability by Professor Jonathan Tomkin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Introductory Human Physiology by Professor Jennifer Carbrey & Emma Jakoi (Duke University)

Journey of the Universe: The Unfolding of Life by Professor John Grim & Mary Evelyn Tucker (Yale University)

Knowing the Universe: History and Philosophy of Astronomy by Professor Chris Impey (University of Arizona)

Medical Neuroscience by Professor Leonard E. White (Duke University)

Mountains 101 by Professor Zac Robinson (University of Alberta)

Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes by Professor David M. Schultz & Rochelle Taylor (University of Manchester)

Our Earth’s Future by Professor Debra Tillinger (American Museum of Natural History)

Paleontology: Ancient Marine Reptiles by Professors Michael Caldwell & Halle P. Street (University of Alberta)

Paleontology: Early Vertebrate Evolution by Professor Alison Murray (University of Alberta)

Paleontology: Theropod Dinosaurs and the Origin of Birds by Professor Philip John Currie (University of Alberta)

Planet Earth and You by Professors Stephen Marshak & Eileen Herrstrom (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Roman Art and Archaeology by Professor David Soren (University of Arizona)

Understanding Plants, Part I: What a Plant Knows by Professor Daniel Chamovitz (Tel Aviv University)

Understanding Plants, Part II: Fundamentals of Plant Biology by Professor Daniel Chamovitz (Tel Aviv University)

Welcome to Game Theory by Professor Michihiro Kandori (University of Tokyo)

15 Free Education & Professional Courses on Coursera Covering Medicine, Law, Teaching, Writing, and More:

Addiction Treatment: Clinical Skills for Healthcare Providers by Professors Jeanette M. Tetrault, Robert Krause, and More (Yale University)

AIDS: Fear and Hope by Professor Richard Meisler (University of Michigan)

American Education Reform: History, Policy, Practice by Professor John L. Puckett & Michael Charles Johanek (University of Pennsylvania)

An Introduction to American Law by Professor Anita Allen, Shyam Balganesh, and More (University of Pennsylvania)

Applying to College 101 by Professor Whitney Soule, Sean Vereen, & Sara Woods (University of Pennsylvania)

Dentistry 101 by Professor Russell Taichman & Rogerio Castilho (University of Michigan)

English Composition by Professor Denise Comer (Duke University)

Essentials of Global Health by Professor Richard Skolnik (Yale University)

The History of Medicine by Professor Grant Hartzog & Greg Gates (UC Santa Cruz)

Hot Topics in Criminal Justice by Professor Christopher Slobogin (Vanderbilt University)

Introduction to Breast Cancer by Professor Anees Chagpar (Yale University)

Introduction to International Criminal Law by Professor Michael Scharf (Case Western Reserve University)

Introduction to Nonprofit Law by Professor John M. Bradley (University of Pennsylvania)

A Law Student’s Toolkit by Professor Ian Ayres (Yale University)

Learning How to Learn by Professor Barbara Oakley & Terrence Sejnowski (Deep Teaching Solutions)

Overcoming Dyslexia by Professor Sally Shaywitz & Bennett Shaywitz (Yale University)

Understanding Clinical Research by Professor Juan H. Klopper (University of Cape Town)

Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us by Professor Connie B. Scanga (University of Pennsylvania)

Writing in the Sciences by Professor Kristin Sainani (Stanford University)

Free Biography Courses on Coursera:

Age of Jefferson by Professor Peter Onuf (University of Virginia)

Benjamin Franklin and His World by Professor Ezekiel J. Emanuel (University of Pennsylvania)

The Kennedy Half Century by Professor Larry Sabato (University of Virginia)

Luther and the West by Professor Christine Helmer (Northwestern University)

Patrick Henry: Forgotten Founder by Professor John Ragosta (University of Virginia)

Understanding Einstein: The Special Theory of Relativity by Professor Larry Randles Lagerstrom (Stanford University)

Free Sports & Hobbies Courses on Coursera:

Dog Emotion and Cognition by Professor Brian Hare (Duke University)

The Horse Course: Introduction to Basic Care and Management by Professor Chris J. Mortensen (University of Florida)

Sports and Society by Professor Orin Starn (Duke University)

The Truth About Cats and Dogs by Professors Hayley Walters, Heather Bacon, and More (University of Edinburgh)

Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis by Professor John Buechsenstein (UC Davis)

Free Technology Courses on Coursera:

AI For Everyone by Professor Andrew Ng (DeepLearning.AI)

Internet Giants: The Law and Economics of Media Platforms by Professor Randal C. Picker (University of Chicago)

Internet History, Technology, and Security by Professor Charles Russell Severance (University of Michigan)

Introduction to Logic by Professor Michael Genesereth (Stanford University)

So many great free courses to choose from! We’ll be writing reviews of many of these courses as we take them. Time to go back to school today!

February 16, 2024

Michael Sugrue’s Free Great Minds Course from the Great Courses

Professor Michael Sugrue passed away last month after a long battle with cancer. Dr. Sugrue was a professor at Princeton and numerous other colleges. In the 1990s he recorded courses for The Teaching Company including many of the lectures for a history of philosophy course entitled Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition. The course has gained a renewed interest on Dr. Sugrue’s YouTube Channel. Apparently, the rights to this edition of the course reverted to him, and he was able to upload them. The course also features Professor Darren Staloff, who taught and maybe still teaches at the City College of New York. Dr. Staloff has appeared in videos on Dr. Sugrue’s channel as well. Dr. Sugrue’s channel, which features lectures from his old Teaching Company courses and more recent lectures he gave on YouTube, currently has over 200,000 subscribers and over 13 million views.

It took me a few hours, but I was able to put together the Great Minds course in chronological order, with about 60 out of the 72 lectures. I used this helpful Great Minds lecture list to help me put them in order. I believe some of the lectures are from the first edition of the course, but most of them are from the second edition of the course, which has a little better audio and video. You can check out the playlist on YouTube here:

Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition Lectures Playlist on YouTube

I was delighted to see his lectures pop up on YouTube as 20 years ago, when I was fresh out of college, I listened to Professor Sugrue’s course Plato, Socrates, and the Dialogues (which you can currently get on Audible). Back then, I was listening to Teaching Company courses on audio cassettes in my car as I delivered pizzas all summer. It was a delightful course, and Dr. Sugrue was undoubtedly a superstar lecturer. Many years later The Teaching Company became The Great Courses which are available on audio download through Audible and on streaming video through Wondrium.

The Great Courses did record a 3rd Edition of Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, which you can purchase from Audible. But it’s great to have the 2nd Edition available for free on YouTube. Professor Sugrue also uploaded an old Teaching Company course entitled The Bible and Western Culture. I also remember listening to this course oh so long ago! Rest in peace, Dr. Sugrue. A true lover of wisdom!

November 27, 2021

iTunes U Shut Down, But Many Courses Still Remain

UPDATE! As you might’ve heard, iTunes shut down their iTunes U section at the end of 2021. iTunes U was launched in 2007 to showcase free educational material from universities, colleges, and other institutions. Now the bad news is that you can no longer browse iTunes U and some of their courses and offerings are gone. But the good news is that many of their courses have now moved over to the iTunes Podcast Directory. At LearnOutLoud we’ve tried to feature the top audio & video learning content that iTunes U had to offer over the years which we’ll highlight below.

After going through their courses which we featured, here are some of courses that still remain on the iTunes Podcast Directory and we still feature on our site:

Over 70 Courses & Lectures from Stanford University on iTunes & YouTube

12 Courses from La Trobe University

23 Free Courses from UC Davis on iTunes & YouTube

16 Courses from East Tennessee State University

19 Courses from Missouri State University on iTunes & YouTube

11 Courses from Harrisburg Area Community College

And here are some of the individual courses and offerings we’ve featured over the years:

The Literature of Crisis

In addition to their other offerings through Stanford on iTunes, Stanford University is offering this course for free through iTunes U on audio download. This Intro to Humanities course entitled “The Literature of Crisis” explores crisis when it occurs at the personal, familial, and societal levels through six major works of literature. Professor Martin Evans and Marsh McCall are both dynamic lecturers that lead listeners through these works. While it seems a lot can be derived from the lectures without reading the works, you may want to read (or listen to) some of the works yourself in conjuction with listening to the lectures. Here are the works they examine (with links to these titles on audio book): Apology by Plato, The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Hamlet by Shakespeare, The Aeneid by Virgil, and Candide by Voltaire.

Story of Freedom in America

Professor J. Rufus Fears was an American historian, scholar, teacher, and author, who was best known for his many courses he taught through the Teaching Company that produces The Great Courses. Now you can get one of his “great” courses absolutely free from the University of Oklahoma through iTunes U. In a series of 18 dynamic audio & video lectures supplemented by downloadable documents, Professor J. Rufus Fears tells the story of how America’s vision of freedom became a model for the entire world. As Fears argues in the first lecture, one of the main reasons America has endured is because the founding fathers used lessons from the past to make decisions in the present and plan for the future. This sense of what works historically and what we should avoid has given the great American leaders (from Jefferson to Lincoln to FDR) a sturdy precedent that can be used as a tool to forge ahead. With that established, Fears says the purpose of the course will be to reflect upon the lessons provided by major turning points in American history and how we can use this history to tackle the problems the world faces today. Enjoy this course from a truly great professor and historian. Now on YouTube.

Colonial and Revolutionary America

The ways in which scholars and teachers approach American History has gone through a major shakeup in recent years, and in this free course presented by Stanford, students will be given a chance to assess the new ways we might investigate American origins. Historian and professor Jack Rakove identifies two strands of thinking when it comes to American history: the first, more conventional take examines American history through the prism of British colonial involvement and the transplantation of English institutions into North America. The second, more contemporary view sets the clock back to European “discovery”, starting with Columbus and tracing the vast exchanges over what became known as the Atlantic Ocean. Setting up his survey in these terms, Rakove explains that writing a strong narrative of American history has always been tough to do, and the course will try to navigate the complex series of interactions that led to the development of the North American continent up the Revolutionary generation. This course is available on audio through iTunes U.

Romanticism Course

Who were the Romantics? In this free course conducted by Timothy Morton, listeners will learn about an innovative literary period between 1790 and 1820 that produced influential writers such as William Blake, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Mary Shelley. Centered primarily in England at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic poets began to grapple with a changing world that was dominated by capitalist ambition, a growing consumerism, and the explosive development of democratic political reforms. Morton also feels that with this change there came a new self-awareness that the romantics tapped into, where many became conscious of a newfound intellectual and expressive freedom. The course will not only cover the writers and their work, but also pay special attention to how their thinking helped influence modern self-understanding. It’s being offered on audio on iTunes U.

How to Think Like a Psychologist

In this free mini-course provided by Stanford University, Upside of Stress author and psychologist Kelly McGonigal hosts a survey of current trends in psychology and how they might offer strategies for use in daily life. With each class, cutting edge psychologists offer a lecture on their specific areas of study, followed by lively interviews with McGonigal and questions from the class. Fascinating topics covered include how to use meditation to combat anxiety, finding practical techniques to manage our emotions, and what really makes human beings unique. A must for anyone interested in the role psychology plays in daily life, and for those that want to learn more about the newest, exciting innovations in the field. This course is available on video through iTunes U.

Enjoy what is left of iTunes U through the iTunes Podcast Directory!

November 13, 2017

How to Access iTunes U Content in the New iTunes

For those of you who are fans of the free audio & video courses and lectures on iTunes U and you downloaded iTunes 12.7, you might’ve been shocked and dismayed to learn that the ability to browse iTunes U is no longer a main menu option within iTunes on your desktop. As of their September 2017 iTunes 12.7 release, iTunes U was merged with the Podcasts section. So while the iTunes U content is still there and you can search for it, the ability to browse it is now difficult in iTunes. You can browse it within the iTunes U iOS app on your iPhone or iPad. But if you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, it’s harder to find all this great free educational content. Also after browsing the iOS app we found that a lot of the content that universities are offering is not easy to find within the iOS app, but it is still up in iTunes. It’s a little confusing, but Apple has now divided the iTunes U content into Podcasts and Course Collections and the Course Collections are not accessible outside of iOS. But a lot of the actual courses are listed as Podcasts and are accessible via iTunes.

Anyway after some digging we did locate the link to the iTunes U browse page on iTunes. Here it is:

New iTunes U Browse Page on iTunes

But for desktop users this browse page doesn’t help a whole lot because for the most part it only links to the Course Collections that are only accessible on iOS. It does not link to the Podcasts which offer a lot more iTunes U content than is accessible in the iTunes U app.

So in this blog post we’ll try to help you out with locating all that iTunes U has to offer in iTunes. Hopefully in the future Apple will make an iTunes U Podcast browse section of their podcast directory and hopefully they’ll make the iTunes Course Collections accessible to all (not just iOS users). For now we thought we’d aid you with links to the top college & university providers on iTunes and their new Podcasts pages, along with links to iTunes U content that we’ve featured on our site.

You can access a lot of the iTunes U content directly through the university podcast provider pages. We went through all of the providers in iTunes U and picked out the best ones to link to. So we’ll start by providing you with links to some of the top iTunes U providers on iTunes:

Stanford University on iTunes

Harvard University on iTunes

Yale University on iTunes

Columbia University on iTunes

MIT OpenCourseware on iTunes

UC Berkeley on iTunes

UCLA on iTunes

Duke University on iTunes

University of Southern California on iTunes

Ohio State University on iTunes

Arizona State University on iTunes

Oxford University on iTunes

University of London on iTunes

The Open University on iTunes

University of Pennsylvania on iTunes

UCTV on iTunes

University of Chicago on iTunes

La Trobe University on iTunes

DePaul University on iTunes

The University of Texas at Austin on iTunes

Caltech on iTunes

Carnegie Mellon University on iTunes

American University on iTunes

Emory University on iTunes

Chapman University on iTunes

UC Davis on iTunes

Cornell University on iTunes

Georgetown University on iTunes

Missouri State University on iTunes

New York University on iTunes

UC Irvine on iTunes

University of Arizona on iTunes

University of Notre Dame on iTunes

Reformed Theological Seminary on iTunes

University of Glasgow on iTunes

And here are some iTunes U providers that are not universities or colleges:

Library of Congress on iTunes

The Aspen Ideas Festival on iTunes

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on iTunes

Center for Strategic and International Studies on iTunes

U.S. National Archives on iTunes

Smithsonian Folkways on iTunes

Also we still link to a number of iTunes U offerings through LearnOutLoud. Here are some of courses and offerings we’ve collected over the years:

Over 70 Courses & Lectures from Stanford University on iTunes & YouTube

30 Courses from La Trobe University

Over 20 Free Courses from UC Davis on iTunes & YouTube

10 Courses from Arizona State University

Over 15 Courses from East Tennessee State University

12 Courses from the University of New Orleans

9 Courses from Utah Valley University

3 Courses from the University of Oklahoma

7 Courses from Johns Hopkins University

15 Courses from Liberty University

30 Courses from Missouri State University on iTunes & YouTube

13 Courses from New York University on iTunes & YouTube

8 Courses from Ohio State University

12 Course from Seattle Pacific University

9 University of Michigan Courses

22 Courses from Harrisburg Area Community College

5 Courses from Parkland College

8 Courses from the New Jersey Institute of Technology

18 Courses from Covenant Theological Seminary

3 Courses from DePaul University

30 Courses from the Reformed Theological Seminary

4 University of Arizona Courses

And here is over 50 other iTunes U courses we link to:

50 More iTunes Courses

And here are some of the individual courses and offerings we’ve featured over the years:

Exploring the Hobbit

In this free course provided by iTunes U on audio download, Corey Olsen offers a thorough, chapter by chapter discussion of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, discussing character, plot, and thematic elements in lovingly exhaustive detail. Olsen stresses Tolkien’s careful choice of words, the importance of poetry and music in The Hobbit and the careful tonal balance the author keeps between whimsical prose and serious subject matter. In the end, Bilbo Baggins’ journey mirrors the reader’s journey from mundane every-day existence to an ever-expanding vista that becomes more fantastic, more magical and more dangerous as the story progresses. With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit film adaptation coming to a close, this course is a perfect way to dig into the source material, learn more about Tolkien’s work, and explore how The Hobbit fits into the grander story told with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Literature of Crisis

In addition to their other offerings through Stanford on iTunes, Stanford University is offering this course for free through iTunes U on audio download. This Intro to Humanities course entitled “The Literature of Crisis” explores crisis when it occurs at the personal, familial, and societal levels through six major works of literature. Professor Martin Evans and Marsh McCall are both dynamic lecturers that lead listeners through these works. While it seems a lot can be derived from the lectures without reading the works, you may want to read (or listen to) some of the works yourself in conjuction with listening to the lectures. Here are the works they examine (with links to these titles on audio book): Apology by Plato, The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Hamlet by Shakespeare, The Aeneid by Virgil, and Candide by Voltaire.

Story of Freedom in America

Professor J. Rufus Fears was an American historian, scholar, teacher, and author, who was best known for his many courses he taught through the Teaching Company that produces The Great Courses. Now you can get one of his “great” courses absolutely free from the University of Oklahoma through iTunes U. In a series of 18 dynamic audio & video lectures supplemented by downloadable documents, Professor J. Rufus Fears tells the story of how America’s vision of freedom became a model for the entire world. As Fears argues in the first lecture, one of the main reasons America has endured is because the founding fathers used lessons from the past to make decisions in the present and plan for the future. This sense of what works historically and what we should avoid has given the great American leaders (from Jefferson to Lincoln to FDR) a sturdy precedent that can be used as a tool to forge ahead. With that established, Fears says the purpose of the course will be to reflect upon the lessons provided by major turning points in American history and how we can use this history to tackle the problems the world faces today. Enjoy this course from a truly great professor and historian.

Introduction to Human Anatomy

Utah Valley University Professor Michael J. Shively leads a course that will explore the structure and function of the most remarkable machine on earth: the Human Body. In a series of video lectures, Shively goes over how human anatomy is broken down to the sub-atomic level, back up to the “gross” or observable elements we can study with the naked eye. As they progress through the course, Shively asks his students to continually build upon what they are learning, providing a cell by cell, bone by bone picture of how human beings function and how we differ from other living beings. Fun and easy to digest, Shively’s dynamic videos easily draw both the student and the viewer in on a fascinating topic. This 38 lesson course is available on free video via iTunes U.

History of Modern Philosophy

In this free audio course from iTunes U, Professor Clarence Mark Phillips from the University of New Orleans presents a philosophical survey from the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century (from Descartes to Kant) and tracks how rational thought splintered into fields such as political science, economics, and evolutionary psychology. It focuses on on how certain Renaissance-era thinkers began to respond to earlier philosophical traditions from antiquity, leading to new concepts that became hallmarks of the Enlightenment period and laid the bedrock for the modern mind. Phillips stresses that one of the main points of the course is to engage the learner to grapple head-on with the concepts discussed so they might develop analytical tools that go beyond the subject at hand and so they can be used in everyday life. Download or listen to this audio course through iTunes.

Jerusalem: The Holy City

UCLA professor Robert Cargill teaches a class that considers how the the three major world religions focused on Jerusalem as a center of holy significance. Cargill begins the course by tracking why a regionally unexceptional city became so important in the first place. Starting chronologically with Genesis, he traces the history of Jewish settlement in the region, to the rise of Christianity and the latter development of Islam. Throughout each lecture, Cargill tethers every historical era to the physical geography of the city itself, showcasing how cultural and religious development was mirrored by the changing significance of specific landmarks. Viewed in this light, Cargill’s course demonstrates how different cultures externalize and maintain their religious beliefs through physical objects and places. This course is available on video through iTunes U.

Colonial and Revolutionary America

The ways in which scholars and teachers approach American History has gone through a major shakeup in recent years, and in this free course presented by Stanford, students will be given a chance to assess the new ways we might investigate American origins. Historian and professor Jack Rakove identifies two strands of thinking when it comes to American history: the first, more conventional take examines American history through the prism of British colonial involvement and the transplantation of English institutions into North America. The second, more contemporary view sets the clock back to European “discovery”, starting with Columbus and tracing the vast exchanges over what became known as the Atlantic Ocean. Setting up his survey in these terms, Rakove explains that writing a strong narrative of American history has always been tough to do, and the course will try to navigate the complex series of interactions that led to the development of the North American continent up the Revolutionary generation. This course is available on audio through iTunes U.

Romanticism Course

Who were the Romantics? In this free course conducted by Timothy Morton, listeners will learn about an innovative literary period between 1790 and 1820 that produced influential writers such as William Blake, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Mary Shelley. Centered primarily in England at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic poets began to grapple with a changing world that was dominated by capitalist ambition, a growing consumerism, and the explosive development of democratic political reforms. Morton also feels that with this change there came a new self-awareness that the romantics tapped into, where many became conscious of a newfound intellectual and expressive freedom. The course will not only cover the writers and their work, but also pay special attention to how their thinking helped influence modern self-understanding. It’s being offered on audio on iTunes U.

How to Think Like a Psychologist

In this free mini-course provided by Stanford University, Upside of Stress author and psychologist Kelly McGonigal hosts a survey of current trends in psychology and how they might offer strategies for use in daily life. With each class, cutting edge psychologists offer a lecture on their specific areas of study, followed by lively interviews with McGonigal and questions from the class. Fascinating topics covered include how to use meditation to combat anxiety, finding practical techniques to manage our emotions, and what really makes human beings unique. A must for anyone interested in the role psychology plays in daily life, and for those that want to learn more about the newest, exciting innovations in the field. This course is available on video through iTunes U.

Hopefully this post helps you find the riches of iTunes U!

May 3, 2017

45 Free Massive Open, Online Courses from UC-Irvine on YouTube

In the past we’ve featured over 100 free courses from UC San Diego which present podcasts on audio (and some on video) of courses from 2007 to the present from the University of California at San Diego. You can browse them here:

Browse Over 100 Course Podcasts from UC San Diego

Today we’re featuring 45 free courses offered by the University of California at Irvine. Since 2012 UC-Irvine has been offering courses through their UCI open, online course initiative and they are now offering these courses on YouTube. Many of these courses are in the areas of chemistry, physics, Earth science, math, and engineering. You can browse them all there:

45 Free Video Courses from UC-Irvine on LearnOutLoud.com

And here they all are listed by their educational department:

Biological Sciences 93: DNA To Organisms

Biological Sciences 94: Organisms to Ecosystems

Biological Sciences M121: Immunology with Hematology

Chemistry 1P: Preparation for General Chemistry

Chemistry 1B: General Chemistry

Chemistry 107: Inorganic Chemistry

Chemistry 128: Introduction to Chemical Biology

Chemistry 131A: Quantum Principles

Chemistry 131B: Molecular Structure & Statistical Mechanics

Chemistry 131C: Thermodynamics and Chemical Dynamics

Chemistry 201: Organic Reaction Mechanisms I

Chemistry 202: Organic Reaction Mechanisms II

Chemistry 203: Organic Spectroscopy

Chemistry 51C: Organic Chemistry

Chemistry 5: Scientific Computing Skills

Earth System Science 1: Introduction to Earth System Science

Earth System Science 5: The Atmosphere

Earth System Science 21: On Thin Ice: Climate Change and the Cryosphere

Earth System Science 23: Air Pollution and Global Environments

Education 151: Language and Literacy

Education 320: Teaching PE & Health, Elementary Education

Engineering CEE 20: Engineering Problem Solving

Engineering MAE 91: Intro to Thermodynamics

Engineering MAE 130A: Intro to Fluid Mechanics

Engineering 165/265: Advanced Manufacturing Choices

Math 2A: Calculus

Math 4: Math for Economists

Math 113B: Mathematical Biology

Math 131A: Introduction to Probability and Statistics

Math 176: Math of Finance

Physics 3A: Basic Physics I

Physics 3B: Basic Physics II

Physics 3C: Basic Physics III

Physics 7C: Classical Physics

Physics 20B: Cosmology

Physics 20E: Life in the Universe

Physics 50: Math Methods

Physics 255: Einstein’s General Relativity and Gravitation

Psych 9A: Psychology Fundamentals

Public Health 1: Principles of Public Health

Public Health 91: Disparities in Healthcare

Public Health 194A: Clinical and Translational Research Preparatory I

The Power of Microeconomics

The Power of Macroeconomics

Interestingly enough those last two economics courses are taught by American economist Peter Navarro who currently serves as the Assistant to the President, Director of Trade and Industrial Policy, and the Director of the White House National Trade Council, a newly-created entity in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government. Learn about some of the economic principles guiding the Trump administration in these two free courses.

Navarro is the author of over a dozen books and has also taught four Modern Scholar courses that we offer on sale on LearnOutLoud:

Big Picture Investing

Big Picture MBA

Principles of Economics: Business, Banking, Finance, and Your Everyday Life

Waking Dragon: The Emerging Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the World

Navarro has long been a critic of China and its role in global trade and that last course is certain to be of interest when it comes to his guidance of U.S. trade policy in the coming years. For a free lecture he gave on one of his books on China check out this talk from C-SPAN:

Peter Navarro on The Coming China Wars

Of course all of our over 1,200 free audio & video courses can be found in our Free Courses Collection here:

LearnOutLoud.com Free Courses Collection

September 16, 2014

700 New Free College Courses on Audio & Video

It’s our back to school extravaganza! And we’ve really out done ourselves this year at LearnOutLoud.com. We’ve searched deep and wide, and have unearthed over 700 new free audio & video courses to our LearnOutLoud.com Free Courses Collection. That means we now have over 1200 free courses in our collection! The largest collection of free audio & video courses from colleges and universities on the web! You can check out the full collection right here:

Browse Over 1200 Courses in the LearnOutLoud.com Free Courses Collection

Click through to the categories and subcategories of the courses and you’ll find them sorted by most recently added, so you can see what is new!

In this blog post we’ll guide you through what we’ve added. We’ll start with courses we’ve added that are available from YouTube. For these courses we’ve embedded the YouTube playlists so you can watch lectures right through our site or click over to YouTube. In all we’ve added over 250 full courses on YouTube from various colleges and universities. We’ll start out listing some of the colleges that have a lot of course offerings which we’ve added:

Biola University (23 Courses)

Cal State Dominguez Hills (37 Courses)

Crash Courses (7 Courses)

Indian Institutes of Technology (10 Courses)

MIT OpenCourseWare (65 Courses)

UC Irvine (30 Courses)

University of Missouri-Kansas City (13 Courses)

Virtual University of Pakistan (28 Courses)

And to get you started with some courses, we’ll highlight some of the most interesting courses being offered through YouTube that we’ve added to our site. Here are some great courses you might want to check out:

The Age of Sustainable Development by Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia University

Biodiversity and the Meaning of Human Existence by E.O. Wilson at Duke University

Dynamics of the Spiritual Exercises by Howard Gray

Inside Creative Writing by Robert Olen Butler at Florida State University

Positive Psychology by Tal Ben-Shahar at Harvard University

The Rise and Future of the Food Movement by Michael Pollan at UC Berkeley

Pakistan Studies by Arshad S. Karim at Virtual University of Pakistan

Physics 255: Einstein’s General Relativity and Gravitation by Herbert W. Hamber at UC Irvine

World Economic History Before the Industrial Revolution by Gregory Clark at UC Davis

Cars: Past, Present, and Future by Jon Summers at Stanford University

Ancient Israel by Daniel Fleming at New York University

The Early Universe by Alan Guth at MIT

The Heroic Quest by Joseph Hughes at Missouri State University

Indian Philosophy by Satya Sundar Sethy at Indian Institutes of Technology

Introduction to Music by Mary Dave Blackman at East Tennessee State University

Fundamentals of Speech by Bill Deluca at Cal State Dominguez Hills

Enjoy these free courses available through YouTube!

Along with course from YouTube, we’ve also scoured iTunes U for some of their best courses and have come up with over 300 iTunes U Courses that are available on audio and video. These come from a wide range of educational institutions from prestigious universities to community colleges to seminaries to technical schools. Enjoy these free offerings from iTunes U. We’ll start by listing the colleges that have the most courses:

Arizona State University (10 Courses)

Columbia University (8 Courses)

Concordia Seminary (11 Courses)

Covenant Theological Seminary (18 Courses)

Dallas Theological Seminary (25 Courses)

East Tennessee State University (17 Courses)

Front Range Community College (8 Courses)

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (10 Courses)

Harrisburg Area Community College (22 Courses)

Johns Hopkins University (7 Courses)

La Trobe University (29 Courses)

Liberty University (15 Courses)

Missouri State University (31 Courses)

New Jersey Institute of Technology (8 Courses)

Ohio State University (8 Courses)

Reformed Theological Seminary (30 Courses)

Seattle Pacific University (12 Courses)

Stanford University (60+ Courses and Talks)

UC Davis (22 Courses)

University of Michigan (9 Courses)

University of New Orleans (12 Courses)

Utah Valley University (9 Courses)

And now for some highlights of the free courses we’ve added from iTunes U. Here are some of the outstanding courses you can take on audio & video:

Introduction to Human Anatomy and Physiology by Michael J. Shively at Utah Valley University

The Kennedy Half Century from University of Virginia

Story of Freedom in America by J. Rufus Fears at University of Oklahoma

History of Modern Philosophy by Clarence Mark Phillips at University of New Orleans

Shakespeare’s Principal Plays by Ralph Williams at University of Michigan

Mind, Self, and Language by Amy Fountain at University of Arizona

HIST 443: The United States Since 1945 by Paul Iwancio at University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Jerusalem: The Holy City by Robert R. Cargill at UCLA

Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety by Margaret Swisher at UC Davis

How to Think Like a Psychologist by Kelly McGonigal at Stanford University

C.S. Lewis by Knox Chamblin at Reformed Theological Seminary

Fundamentals of Nutrition by Toni Burkhalter at Parkland College

Life in the Universe by Richard Pogge at Ohio State University

Investment Philosophies by Aswath Damodaran at New York University

Classical Mythology by Joseph Hughes at Missouri State University

The Roman World by Rhiannon Evans at La Trobe University

The History of Public Health by Graham Mooney at Johns Hopkins University

Western Movies: Myth, Ideology, and Genre by Richard Slotkin

American Capitalism: A History by Louis Hyman at Cornell University

Blood and Oil: Energy, the Middle East and War by Alan Richards at UC Santa Cruz

Exploring The Hobbit by Corey Olsen

Faith, Social Justice, and Public Life by Jim Wallis

The Hebrew Scriptures in Judaism and Christianity by Shaye J.D. Cohen at Harvard University

Introduction to Planetary Astronomy by Robert Wagner
20th Century World History by Anthony Heideman

So many great free courses to choose from. But we’re not done yet!

We’ve also added courses to our collection from two great other sources. Annenberg Learner offers multimedia resources for teaching and learning, and in their video series they have 50 outstanding courses. These video courses are available on streaming video through their pop up player on their site. Here are all the Annenberg Learner courses we’ve added:

50 Annenberg Learner Courses

And here are some of their video courses that may interest you:

American Cinema

Art of the Western World

Connect With English

Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish

Exploring the World of Music

French in Action

Invitation to World Literature

The Brain: Teaching Modules

The World of Abnormal Psychology

Planet Earth

Physics for the 21st Century

The next great collection of knowledge that we’ve added comes from Oxford University. Oxford offers 100s of podcasts and we’ve picked out over 100 podcasts to add to our site. You can play these audio podcasts directly through our podcast player. Not all of them are courses, but they are all a great source of education from our friends over in England.

Over 100 Podcasts from Oxford University

Here are some of the Oxford podcasts that are courses:

A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners by Marianne Talbot

A Romp Through the Philosophy of Mind by Marianne Talbot

Approaching Shakespeare by Emma Smith

General Philosophy by Peter Millican

Hume’s Central Principles by Peter Millican

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason by Daniel N. Robinson

Philosophy for Beginners by Marianne Talbot

The Elements of Drawing by Stephen Farthing

And we forgot to mention one final source of free courses that we’ve added. The Ayn Rand Institute now has courses available on streaming video (and some on audio download). Note that taking courses on the Ayn Rand Institute website requires registration. Click below to see the ones we’ve added:

Ayn Rand Institute (11 Courses)

Some of the highlights include:

History of Philosophy by Leonard Peikoff

The Fountainhead Course by Keith Lockitch

Ayn Rand, the Radical Thinker by Onkar Ghate, Keith Lockitch, & Yaron Brook

And a mini course by Ayn Rand herself:

Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand

Start taking a free course today!

May 20, 2014

Don Quixote Online Audio Book and Course

Firstly we wanted to let you know that Librivox.org has a brand new website with better design and functionality. The site makes is much easier and faster to browse their catalog of over 5,000 free audio books. You can now browse by category, author, title, solo vs. group narration, and recently added titles. Unfortunately they changed all of their RSS feeds, so most of the Librivox titles on our site aren’t playing in our podcast player, but we’re currently fixing that. Check out their great new site:

http://librivox.org/

Today’s free audio book is a Librivox release:

Don Quixote, Volume 1

Don Quixote, Volume 2

Don Quixote is considered the one of the very first modern novels. Follow the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a minor landowner who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthly wit in dealing with Don Quixote’s rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Quixote’s “lady” is Dulcinea del Toboso, an imaginary object of his courtly love crafted from a neighboring farm girl by the illusion-struck “knight” (her real name is Aldonza Lorenzo, and she is totally unaware of his feelings for her.) The two volumes of the novel were published in 1605 and 1615, respectively. This novel is read by a multitude of volunteers at Librivox and has an unabridged running time of 42 hours.

Don Quixote, Volume 1

Don Quixote, Volume 2

And for those of you who want to supplement your learning about The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, Yale University has put out an entire course on the novel:

Cervantes’ Don Quixote Yale University Course

The course comes from Yale University’s Spanish department, but you don’t need to know Spanish to take it. Nevertheless Professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria will teach you much about Spanish culture and history. This Yale course goes through the entire book chronologically, and in the course listings it says which chapters will be covered in each lecture. Enjoy greater understanding and insight into one of the greatest works of the Western Canon.

Cervantes’ Don Quixote Yale University Course

September 18, 2013

The Great Courses on Sale on Audible & iTunes, No Coupon Necessary!

We must mention the great news that The Great Courses are now available at a sale price for audio download on Audible.com! For anyone unaware, The Great Courses publish and sell lecture courses from the nation’s best university professors. They now offer over 400 courses on audio and video from a broad array of university level disciplines. Now almost all of their audio courses are available for audio download through Audible.com, and we’ve switched over our links to point to Audible.com. Not only are these courses readily available through Audible.com’s great applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android, but The Great Courses are also usually cheaper on Audible.com, especially if you have an Audible membership. Now you can get great, expansive courses for only 1 credit! And since Audible.com supplies iTunes you can also buy The Great Courses on sale on iTunes with prices almost always below $29.95 per course (and many courses for only $14.95)!

But the cheapest way to get The Great Courses is certainly through an Audible.com membership. If you don’t have a membership, you should maybe try Audible out:

AudibleListener® Gold Membership Consumer Offer
Get 50% off your first 3 months of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan and receive your free audiobook credit each month. Pay only $7.49/month for 3 months, $14.95/month thereafter.

Audible® Free Trial Consumer Offer
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases.

And here’s a link to all of The Great Courses on iTunes:

The Great Courses on Sale on iTunes

Even if you don’t have an Audible.com membership, the prices are often cheaper for audio downloads through Audible.com. No more waiting around for that desired Great Course to go on sale or for a coupon to arrive. You can get them all on sale on Audible.com! Also you can now listen to audio samples of the courses before you buy them! Browse all The Great Courses we feature on LearnOutLoud.com right here:

Browse The Great Courses Now on Sale on Audible.com

And for some free content, we’ve also wrote a few blog posts of free videos that The Great Courses is now offering:

Free Video Lecture Samples from The Great Courses

Preview Free Video Trailers for The Great Courses

And they also feature a new podcast:

The Torch: The Great Courses Podcast

Here are some of those great courses that you can now get for 1 credit or at a sale price on Audible.com:

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music

Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition

Biology: The Science of Life

The American Civil War

The Great Ideas of Psychology

Economics

No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life

Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity

Classics of American Literature

Story of Human Language

The Old Testament

Now The Great Courses are cheaper and more accessible than ever through Audible.com! And just in time for Back to School!

Note: We don’t currently sell these courses directly. We just link to The Great Courses and Audible.com as an affiliate.

And if you haven’t yet, be sure to check out The Great Courses Plus. You can now sign up for a free one month trial on TheGreatCoursesPlus.com. For fans of The Great Courses it’s overwhelmingly awesome. You subscribe to The Great Courses Plus, and you can then watch 300 great courses and over 6,000 video lectures as much as you want, whenever you want!

After the initial free month, the price is only $19.99/month now! A bargain considering all the great courses you get access to. And if you sign up for a full year the price breaks down to only $14.99/month. We’ve gone through their entire catalog and there are so many courses and individual lectures we want to watch. You can browse all these courses by category on their website as well:

Browse Over 300 Courses Currently Offered Through the The Great Courses Plus
We’ve updated a blog post that lays out The Great Courses Plus in more detail and lists all the current courses:

Watch 300 Great Courses on the Great Courses Plus Updated Blog Post

September 17, 2013

500 Free University Courses Online

It’s back to school time again and the amount of free courses available on audio & video is greater than it has ever been! We’ve once again scoured the internet to collect all the best free courses we could gather, and we’ve put them all in our LearnOutLoud.com Free Courses Collection. We now have over 500 free courses on audio & video in our collection. We have them all well-organized into categories which you can browse right here:

Browse 500 Free Courses in the LearnOutLoud.com Free Courses Collection

For your convenience we’ll also list all the great new courses we’ve added below starting with some courses we’ve added from Udemy.com.

Udemy.com is an online learning website that allows instructors to host courses. The experts that teach courses on their platform can upload video, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, audio, and offer live classes. They feature many popular and highly rated courses, that are both paid and free. Many of their top free courses come from their Faculty Project Courses featuring the “Best Professors Teaching the World”. Here are some of those great courses from Udemy.com:

Ancient Greek Religion by Robert Garland, Professor of the Classics at Colgate University

Classics of American Literature: T. S. Eliot by Victor Strandberg, Professor of English at Duke University

Elixir: A History of Water and Humans by Brian Fagan, Retired Professor of Anthropology

Energy, Economics, and the Environment by Ben Ho, Assistant Professor of Economics at Vassar College

Foundations of Business Strategy by Michael Lenox, Professor of Business at University of Virginia

Is American Democracy Broken? Perspectives and Debates by Jeb Barnes, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California

Math is Everywhere: Applications of Finite Math by Tim Chartier, Associate Professor of Mathematics – Davidson College

Poetry: What It Is, and How to Understand It by Margaret Soltan, Associate Professor of English at George Washington University

Russian Literature and Music by Professor Irwin Weil, Professor of Russian Literature and Music at Northwestern University

The US Constitution: A Biography by Robert J. Allison, Professor and Chair of the History Department at Suffolk University

Of all the universities offering free courses online now, the best courses might be coming from Yale University. Both in terms of the quality of their content and the quality of the way the courses were recorded. Yale also offers the courses on streaming video, audio download, and video download, making it optimal for audio & video learners who can watch the videos at home or listen to them on-the-go. All the courses are introductory level courses so you don’t have to worry about starting one that might be over your head. On LearnOutLoud.com we’ve embedded the courses from YouTube’s player and we link to the courses on YouTube for streaming video. We also link to the courses on the Open Yale Courses website for downloading on audio or video. We’ve created a publisher page showcasing the over 40 courses we now offer from Yale University:

Over 40 Free Courses from Yale Open Courses

A few years ago we added hundreds of courses to our site and since then Yale has added seven new courses that we feature below. The complete course lectures are up for each of these new courses. And please note: To download these courses you’ll need to click “SESSIONS” or “VIEW CLASS SESSIONS” on the Yale website:

African American History: From Emancipation to the Present by Professor Jonathan Holloway

The Atmosphere, the Ocean, and Environmental Change by Professor Ron Smith

The Early Middle Ages, 284-1000 by Professor Paul Freedman

Freshman Organic Chemistry II by Professor Michael McBride (a follow up to Freshman Organic Chemistry I)

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner by Professor Wai Chee Dimock

Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature by Professor Tamar Gendler

Human Emotion by Professor June Gruber (Only on video through YouTube)

Beyond Yale we’ll go New York University. NYU has added four new courses since we checked in with them last. And here they are:

Calculus I by Professor Matthew Leingang

Cultures & Contexts: Ancient Israel by Professor Daniel Fleming

Brain and Behavior by Professor Wendy Suzuki

Public Economics and Finance by Professor Nirupama Rao

Now we’ll go up to Cambridge, Massachusetts to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT now has 50 courses they are offering through MIT OpenCourseWare. You can browse them all here:

50 Courses from MIT OpenCourseWare

We’ve added 15 recent MIT courses that we’ll list below:

The Challenge of World Poverty

Darwin and Design

Energy Decisions, Markets, Policies

The Film Experience

Finance Theory I

Fundamentals of Biology

The History of MIT

Mathematics for Computer Science

MIT Calculus Revisited: Calculus of Complex Variables

MIT Calculus Revisited: Multivariable Calculus

Philosophical Issues in Brain Science

Principles of Microeconomics

Reflective Practice

Speak Italian With Your Mouth Full

A newcomer to the stage of free courses on video is Missouri State University. They’ve put up 13 of their courses for free on YouTube and here they are:

College Algebra

Financial Management

Fundamentals of Chemistry

Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Religion

Introduction to Theatre and Drama Arts

Introduction to World Music

Knights and Maidens

The Language of Music

Literature and World of the Hebrew Bible

Money and Banking

Principles of Macroeconomics

Survey of Astronomy

And now to the West Coast. The University of California-Berkeley was a pioneer in offering free courses on audio & video which they started to do in 2006 through their site webcast.berkeley.edu . We now feature over 130 of their courses on audio through iTunes and on video through YouTube! You can browse all these courses right here:

Over 130 Free Audio & Video Courses from webcast.berkeley

We’ve added a number of recent UC-Berkeley courses to our site:

Freedom of Speech and the Press

Global Poverty and Impact Evaluation

Introduction to American Studies

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Introduction to Near Eastern Art and Archaeology

Introduction to Sociology

The Politics of Educational Inequality

Psychology and Economics

The United States from the Late 19th Century to the Eve of World

Not far behind UC-Berkeley is UC-San Diego which now podcasts on audio (and some on video) over 100 of their courses!. You can browse all of these podcasted courses right here:

Over 100 UC San Diego Courses on Audio Podcast

We’ve added over 20 new podcasted courses from UCSD to our site:

AIDS Science and Society

America and the World: World War I to the Present

American Legal History to 1865

Art and the Enlightenment

Behavior Modification

Classical & Medieval Tradition

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The Evolution of the Human Brain

Histories of Photography

International Trade

Introduction to Biofuels

Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Western Music

Life in the Universe

Logic and Decision Making

Memory and Amnesia

Modern Art and Visual Culture in 20th Century Art in China and Japan

Music of The 20th Century

Natural Disasters and Human Impacts

Neuroanatomy and Physiology

The Neuropsychological Basis of Alternate States of Consciousness

Space and Time in the Brain

We’ll be adding more courses in the coming weeks. For now you’ve got 500 to choose from!