Free Education: CourseRA, Open CourseWare, Khan Academy

Online Education has been an alternative for several years now, and like everything in life, it has advantages and disadvantages.  But some things are undeniable, such as: it is low cost, easier to access, and is schedule flexible.

Several initiatives have been started over the years, with the mission to provide education to the world for free:

• MIT Courseware, one of the pioneers in online education and have opened a large portion of their curriculum online, with thousands of courses available to anyone

• Khan Academy, that started as a student's personal project, and now provides thousands of education videos on a wide variety of subjects, of short and long duration, and where progress of students can be monitored

• CourseRA, a new initiative by University of Michigan and other Ivy League colleges, offering courses about different graduate school topics, that last several weeks and were anyone can enroll

Although many of us believe that online education will never be a substitute for a real life class room experience, where interaction and collective learning takes place, technology will always provide new ways of delivering education in effective and creative ways to anyone willing to learn.

The availability of free quality education will inevitably result in an increase of the general levels of proficiency worldwide.  Even things such as learning how to polish the floor on your house or cooking a new vegan dish can be taught for free by millions of teachers, in the world's biggest and free Television Channel, YouTube.

How are you using online education to improve your education?