All our free courses
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Nature & Environment
Watching the weather
This free course, Watching the weather, describes how meteorological observations are made looking upwards from the surface of the Earth, looking downwards from satellites in space and from aircraft and balloons within the atmosphere. This international network of observations is vital for scientists and forecasters and the results impact on ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Prices, location and spread
The free course, Prices, location and spread, explores aspects of the question Are people getting better or worse off? It covers statistical measures characterising the location of a batch of data (the median and the mean), and looks further at weighted means and at the interquartile range as a measure of spread (variability). Boxplots and ...
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Money & Business
An introduction to public leadership
In this free course, An introduction to public leadership, you will learn more about leadership in the context of public service provision, by public sector organisations, community and voluntary groups, and political bodies.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Ethics in science?
This free course, Ethics in science? discusses how scientists have a moral and ethical responsibility to consider whether they should carry out an experiment. In this short course you will learn of the first clinical trials undertaken for scurvy and small pox and gain an understanding of how much more rigorous today’s clinical trials are. You ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Preparing for your digital life in the 21st Century
Get ready for life in the digital age with this free course, Preparing for your digital life in the 21st Century, which explores how technology shapes our world. Learn what it means to live a ‘digital life’, understand the role of information and communication technologies, and discover how computers work behind the scenes.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Working on your own mathematics
This free course, Working on your own mathematics, focuses on your initial encounters with research. It invites you to think about how perceptions of mathematics have influenced you in your prior learning, your teaching and the attitudes of learners.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Introducing engineering
Engineering encompasses a broad range of disciplines from design to manufacturing. This free course, Introducing engineering, introduces a number of key themes that explore how engineering is undertaken in our modern world. These themes include engineering design, rules that govern engineers, manufacturing for products and electricity ...
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History & The Arts
What is poetry?
Have you always wanted to try to write poetry but never quite managed to start? This free course, What is poetry?, is designed to illustrate the techniques behind both the traditional forms of poetry and free verse. You will learn how you can use your own experiences to develop ideas and how to harness your imagination.
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Education & Development
Using visualisation in maths teaching
This free course, Using visualisation in maths teaching, looks at visualisation as it relates to mathematics, focusing on how it can be used to improve learning. It will also identify ways in which to make more use of visualisation within the classroom.
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Society, Politics & Law
The social in social science
In a complex and rapidly changing world, social scientific study examines how we produce things, communicate, govern ourselves and understand our environments, and how to solve the problems we face in the organisation of social relations and processes. This free course, The social in social science, provides a basic overview of how social ...
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Money & Business
Workplace learning with coaching and mentoring
In this free course, Workplace learning with coaching and mentoring, you will consider theoretical and practical issues in planning and managing learning and talent development programmes in your organisation. You will also explore ideas about coaching and mentoring; both are prominent learning and development tools in contemporary ...
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Education & Development
Working with young people: roles and responsibilities
In this free course, Working with young people: roles and responsibilities, we look at the roles that are taken when working with young people. We focus on what those working with young people actually do, starting with some analysis of roles. We show that, in the context of work with young people, the term is more than simply a statement about ...
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Money & Business
Working in groups and teams
This free course, Working in groups and teams, explores team working from start to finish. It looks at how successful teams are created, roles within a team, the life cycle of a team, how to manage conflict within teams and evaluating team performance.
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Society, Politics & Law
Social science and participation
This free course, Social science and participation, looks at how social science investigates participation, and uses this topic to look in particular at how social science helps to enact social worlds. As you work through the course, you will see that social science enactment of participation is closely related to social science descriptions of,...
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Society, Politics & Law
Who counts as a refugee?
The words 'refugee' and 'asylum seeker' have a wide variety of connotations in Britain, many of them negative. This free course, Who counts as a refugee?, explores how changing social policy and terminology help to shape, and are shaped by, the experiences of people seeking asylum in the UK.
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History & The Arts
What is heritage?
What is heritage? This free course will introduce you to the concept of heritage and its critical study, exploring the role of heritage in both past and contemporary societies.
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Money & Business
Using voluntary work to get ahead in the job market
This free course, Using voluntary work to get ahead in the job market, explores how engaging in voluntary work can enhance your employment opportunities
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Science, Maths & Technology
Using a scientific calculator
Do you have a Casio fx-83 ES scientific calculator (or a compatible model) and want to learn how to use it? This free course, Using a scientific calculator, will help you to understand how to use the different facilities and functions and discover what a powerful tool this calculator can be!