By Ali Osman

I believe this information is beneficial to Somali students who are based in Somali Universities such as Mogadishu, Hargeysa, Bosaso, Baladweyne and Awdal where the resources at their universities are not sufficient. This information is also useful for the professors who may not necessarily have the latest information on their particular area of expertise and could utilize this information for their classes.

There is wealth of free education available on the internet for those who have basic understanding of the English language. We are living in a time where everything is available on the internet bad and good. Unfortunately, the bad is what we know mostly but there is good information and education out there for those who are looking for it. Today, I would like to point out few of these resources for the Somali educators and students. Perhaps you want to learn English, Engineering, Computer Science, Islamic Studies or even Political Science. Or you want to get a text book for the subjects you are studying or teaching. I am here to inform you that there are wealthy of free education available out there. Here is a sample of what you could get but you can see the whole list at my Technology blog athttp://joornaal.wordpress.com. 

FREE BOOKS

If you think the only way you could get free books is visiting your neighborhood library, think again. You could probably get most of your reading needs online without spending a dime. Here is websites you probably should look before your next purchase.

LibriVox provides free audio books from the public domain. There are several options for listening. The first step is to get the mp3 or ogg files into your own computer.

Scribd: Scribd is a social publishing site, where tens of millions of people share original writings and documents. Scribd’s vision is to liberate the written word.

HippoCampus: HippoCampus is a free, public website for high school and lower-division College Students that offers NROC (National Repository of Online Courses) content indexed to popular textbooks.

Project Gutenberg: No list of open courseware projects would be complete without mention of this site. No matter which course you delve into, Project Gutenberg may have materials for you to use. There are, after all, over 27,000 free books available at this site and over 100,000 titles available at their partner, affiliate and resource sites.

Textbook Revolution: This is a student-run volunteer site that began in response to the textbook industry’s constant drive to maximize profits rather than educational value. To that end, you can gain access to numerous textbook materials online for your own private education.
The Assayer: The Assayer is the web’s largest catalog of books whose authors have made them available for free.

The Global Text Project: Do you need a textbook? Perhaps you can find it here online through this open content project. The goal is to make textbooks available to the many who cannot afford them. Or, to make them free to the many who want to read them all!

WikiBooks: Wikibooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Browse through a fantastic range of categories to build your online library.

FREE EDUCATION AT IVY LEAGUE

If you are interested to learn something new, all you need is internet connection and willingness to spend the time. Here are courses available at Ivy League Schools you should know about. These lectures may be available at Youtube.

Stanford on iTunes: Download courses, lecture, interviews and more and play them on your iPod, Mac or PC or burn a CD for your open courseware collection. It’s all free.

The world renowned MIT is offering free lecture videos, lecture notes, exams and no registration is required.

Yale: “Open Yale” courses provide free and open access to a selection of introductory courses that reflect a liberal arts education. All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript format. Registration is not required and no course credit is available.

YaleGlobal Online: Yale Global Online is the flagship publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Their aim is to analyze and promote debate on all aspects of globalization through publishing original articles and multi-media presentations. They also are developing an archive of academic papers on globalization as well as book excerpts and reviews of books on the same subject.

You can see complete list at http://joornaal.wordpress.com

LEARN ENGLISH FREE

Students can learn English as Second Language at MIT for free. All you need is internet connection and Youtube. You can also see here .

CONCLUSION:

There are wealth of education out there for those who are aware and interested. I am hoping the Somali students would take advantage of this available free education and books.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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