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# 2.4 Free online courses

Learning opportunities are also available through a growing number of free online courses. These range from full online courses, such as this one, to interactive activities and videos. The materials have often been produced by colleges and universities and can be found by searching learning resources such as the following:

- Coursera
- edX
- FutureLearn
- Khan Academy
- Merlot II
- Open Education Consortium
- YouTube EDU.

Of course there are also lots of other free learning resources available on OpenLearn, including further badged courses such as Succeed with maths: Part 1 and Part 2, English: skills for learning and Taking your first steps into higher education.

The web offers great potential for gaining information from others, allowing you to connect with a wide range of people and resources.

Another option is to simply put ‘free online courses’ into a search engine like Google. You will probably find that this produces ‘hits’ including OpenLearn, FutureLearn, Coursera, edX and BBC Learning. This shows that there are many such courses available.

You might also like to see if P2PU (Person to Person University) or the Ragged University offer something of interest. If possible, check out what’s involved before you start but do not worry if you find out they are not for you after you have started. One of the advantages of a free course is that you can sample it without having to complete it.

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