Learn how to speak a new language in a few months – from Lifehacker

A condensed version of the article, if this interests you read the full article. Lifehacker reader Gabriel Wyner was tasked with learning four languages in the past few years for his career as an opera singer, and in the process landed on “a pretty damn good method for language learning that you can do in …

144 places to educate yourself online for free

The most extensive listing of free online education I have ever seen. Bookmarking for later. 12 dozen places to education yourself online for free All education is self-education.  Period.  It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop.  We don’t learn anything we don’t want to learn. Broken down by …

Enroll in free online in courses from top institutions – Princeton, Stanford, Michigan

Online educational marketplaces are on the rise, with tools like Udemy and Khan Academy allowing people of all ages to become an expert in any topic. New company Coursera is targeting higher education by offering university-level courses from top institutions to students all over the world, all for free. The company launched with $16 million in Series A funding and is announcing …

iTunes University – free online education – is booming with 100s of millions of downloads

This month both Stanford and Open University reached 50 million downloads of their iTunes U content, a major milestone for online education. Altogether, the service from Apple reached 700 million downloads in January 2012.   Stanford News: In subjects ranging from human behavior to linguistics, Stanford lectures…have been downloaded a whopping 50 million times. The …

iPads for every kindergartener – early results show a positive trend

This is the nation’s first public school district to give every kindergartener an iPad. And the implementation was done very carefully, with the research component built in from the start, not added as an after-thought. — This fall, the district randomly selected 8 of its 16 kindergarten classes to receive iPads. There’s been ongoing professional …

University 2.0 – Sebastian Thrun, Stanford, and free online knowledge

Thrun engaged his audience with the heartwarming story about how an initial idea of offering his renowned Stanford classes for free to students online evolved into an education project touching hundreds of thousands of students across the world. “I hoped for 500 students. We got 160,000,” Thrun said. Thrun’s approach is more than “just” offering …

Amy's Amygdala: the emotional brain that controls fight-or-flight

The brain evolved from the bottom up and one of its first structures was the Amygdala. An almond-shaped set of neurons located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe. It plays a key role in the processing of emotions and is linked to both fear responses and pleasure. For this reason it is often known as …

Amy’s Amygdala: the emotional brain that controls fight-or-flight

The brain evolved from the bottom up and one of its first structures was the Amygdala. An almond-shaped set of neurons located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe. It plays a key role in the processing of emotions and is linked to both fear responses and pleasure. For this reason it is often known as …

How I spent my summer, by Steven Mandzik

Yesterday was the first day of Fall and Summer is officially over, which means it’s time to write my follow-up to Amy’s back to school letter…How I Spent My Summer. An act in two parts. Part I – The Taming of the Bear [box type=”shadow”]Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And be …

Wikipedia: Gateway Platform to More Girls in Tech?

Ever since the Wikimedia Foundation announced its goal to raise the share of female contributors to Wikipedia 25 percent by 2015, I’ve had it in my head to make sure my 11-year old niece is adding her voice to the collective knowledge of the world. It was with this goal of lighting the next generation’s …