One of the most amazing things that the
internet has done is to make information freely available to all. But with an
enormous amount of data available online, the process of filtering the good
from the bad is as tedious as it looks. If you have the inquisitiveness to
learn new things, you can learn anything from calculus to organic chemistry at
home or watch inspiring videos of change-making people. We’ve decided to
feature some cool tools for our readers—especially students—but the vastness of
open information available make them suitable for anyone to dive.
Yes, YouTube. But any random video will most
certainly not be a good source of infotainment. To filter out useful videos,
create an account and add channels that you know are helpful. The place to go
to for university lectures and other educational material is
www.youtube.com/education. The best part is that you can select the quality of
the video you stream according to your internet connection—240p for a slower
connection and 340p and above for faster ones. And with YouTube you are sure to
find many new things to learn.
Technology, Entertainment and
Design—that’s what TED stands for. And since 2006, they have been offering
downloads of short talks and presentations by people who have tried to change
society. Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Founders of
Google), Julian Assange, and U2’s Bono are some of the speakers who have shared
“ideas worth sharing”—the central vision of TED Talks. With more than 700
videos, and almost all of them shorter than 20 minutes, this is a wonderful
source of not just information but also for inspiration and creativity. You
will find hundreds of clips to download. Furthermore, you can also select the
quality of the download according to your bandwidth.
Apple is not as evil as it appears. Even
though it overcharges us for a wide range of devices, it has won our heart with
the noble pursuit of making university lectures and talks, educational videos
and audio available to download all under one roof. The only requirement—you’ll
have to download iTunes, which is free anyway. Simply click on iTunes Store on
the left panel in iTunes. Please note that you will require an internet
connection throughout. After some loading, a screen will show up telling you
that the iTunes Store is not available in Nepal. No worries, we are after
iTunes U, the link for which you will now notice at the centre (top-right). Now
come the goodies! You will be able to download lectures from renowned
universities—MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Yale—for free. And if you think these are
high level courses that you might not be interested in, don’t worry. There are
so many videos that you are bound to find some that appeal to you. Just use the
iTunes U Power Search (available on the top-right) or view the categories in
which the videos are organised.
