Free lectures from top-notch universities

Have you ever wished you could attend lectures at famous universities at no charge? Now you can, thanks to the Internet. More and more schools are posting lectures on Youtube, iTunesU and other multimedia distribution lines.

We're talking big schools here - MIT, Stanford, Berkely, Duke, Yale, Tufts and more. Most are in the USA, but there are some in the UK and Australia.

To find a lecture that suits your interests you can do a simple Google search. Include the words: free lecture video in your search.

Or, you can browse lists of universities and topics at

• Education Portal
  
• World Lecture Hall
• Fathom
  
• LectureFox (The main site was down when I wrote this, but here's the cached version, which shows links to the various schools.)
  

A recent article on Wired.com discusses the implications of this trend. For the intellectually curious, the selection is a goldmine. But the free lectures are also helpful to people in remote areas of the world that would not otherwise have access to quality education. Also, for high-school students exploring college options, it's a great way to sample the courses and the professors.

More educational video sources are listed in my blog post of June 24.

Pauline
teachmeinternet.com

Free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat

When you download a file in PDF format, the software that you use to read it is free. Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) is the most popular tool for viewing PDF files, but it is not the only alternative. It can be sluggish and use lots of computer memory.

And, while Adobe provides a free reader to view PDF files, the company charges a hefty fee for their Adobe Acrobat program to create PDF files - e.g., for documents, ebooks, brochures, etc.

The Codswallop blog lists over 50 free alternatives to Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. These include some advanced features such as encryption, compression and interactive forms. Many of the resources listed there are far more technological than I'll ever use, but just reading through them gives you an idea of all the things you can do with your content.

If all you're looking for is a quick way to convert Word to PDF, I recommend Zamzar or Media-Convert.

Fellow Mac users have PDF creation built into the Print function. Simply click to "print" your document, and in the popup window choose the PDF dropdown menu. This results in a very basic PDF document. For additional features you'll need to use Adobe or one of the programs listed in the Codwallop blog.


Pauline
teachmeinternet.com

Blogs that bring psychology to life

I love to follow the latest developments in psychology. For that I have Google alerts emailed to me whenever the word psychology, psychologist or psychological is mentioned in the news.

But I also love the more casual commentary on psychological issues - which you can find on blogs. Here are some of my favorite psychology blogs:

PsychCentral Blog: John Grohol was one of the very first psychologists on the Web. What started as a pretty good directory to mental health resources online became an excellent hub of psychological knowledge. The blog is part of this comprehensive website.

Cognitive Daily: Psychologist Greta Munger and her husband Dave select interesting news articles about psychological research, and add their own twist. They also answer readers' questions with thoughtful and comprehensive answers. If you are the curious type, CognitiveDaily is a great place to visit and to add to your blog reader.

Mind Hacks: Another blog that asks and answers provocative questions, with emphasis on neuroscience and the brain.

PsyBlog: I like this one, with its emphasis on positive psychology. Also has links to other psychology blogs.


Pauline
teachmeinternet.com

Get a "human" answer to your question

Search engines are great, but they'll never totally replace humans. Sometimes it's hard to make your search query specific enough to get a reasonable number of hits. Sometimes your question is so obscure that you don't know where to begin to look.

In that case, ask someone. You have a few options here. You can ask your friends. You can ask a librarian. But even librarians can't always locate exactly what you want.

Fortunately there are online communities waiting to take your question. You post your question, and wait for someone from the online community to answer.

Don't expect an answer immediately. It may take a few hours or a few days.

The quality of the answers can vary from expert to downright silly or sarcastic. But when all else fails, try this collective wisdom of Internet users.

You can also browse or search the answers to previous questions. And of course, you can answer other people's questions using your own knowledge and experience.


Here are some online Q&A sites to explore:

Yahoo Answers: Very popular, with quick responses, but there's also a lot of chatter for some questions.

WikiAnswers: Over a million questions answered, and "supervisors" to monitor inappropriate content. WikiAnswers was the second fastest growing website in the first 9 months of 2007.

Google Answers: No longer taking questions, but still maintains their database of thousands of good-quality answers by paid researchers.

Yedda: This Israel-based service was recently acquired by AOL. Expect it to grow through the increased exposure.

Answer Bag: You can post images and videos as part of your question or answer - handy when a picture is worth a thousand words.

Microsoft Live QnA: Previous answers are stored via tags rather than categories. Makes them easy to find.

Askville: Owned by Amazon. Active participants accumulate points, which can be used toward Amazon gift certificates. New features include widgets that embed maps, videos, and Amazon products into the content.


BOTTOM LINE: Consider the answers that you get from one of these sources as suggestions for further research. Never make a decision - especially an important one - based on a single piece of information you find online.


Pauline
teachmeinternet.com