How to educate yourself online

Now you can take classes from prestigious universities like Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania at your home’s haven, and they’re free.

With the coronavirus changing the routine of our daily lives and public health officials begging us to stay home and socially isolate ourselves, many of us will have some free time.

There are plenty of ideas, from what to read, virtual museum displays and aquarium and zoo podcasts to online classes, to keep kids busy.

For adults, there is also a large number of free online courses offered by the most prestigious universities. On the one hand, the universities of the Ivy League in the United States offer a whole range of options in English, and on the other, the most outstanding universities in Spain do the same in Spanish.

In the vast world of the Internet, you can find countless options and alternatives to spend your time or to distract yourself a bit. For example, you can virtually visit some zoos for family entertainment, or you can opt for games like “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” or have fun in an online casino, but this time we will present some educational options.

Learning from the experts

Dhawal Shah, CEO of Class Central online education information center, said there are courses on almost anything that people are interested in. Especially now, the most relevant topics are computing and cell phone computing technology, considering the number of people who are online right now.

On the other hand, you can relax learning about Shakespeare or Buddhist philosophy. The courses are divided into topics, which include art and design, health and medicine, social sciences, business, personal development, among others.

These are some examples for business owners “American Capitalism: A Story“, Cornell; “The Science of Well-Being“, Yale; “Economics of Money and Banking“, Columbia; “Introduction to Marketing“, University of Pennsylvania; “Improving your business through a culture of health“, Harvard, and “Networks: friends, money and bytes“, Princeton; “How to speak well in public“, Autonomous University of Barcelona – Spain.

So whether you’re interested in learning about Hollywood history, digital photography, or robotics, there should be no obstacle to finding something on the list of these universities to keep you busy beyond whatever quarantine you face.

Online museums for the whole family

Another of the entertainment and education alternatives for adults and children are the museums that offer online visits.

The Louvre, one of the most iconic art museums in the world, opens its doors to the virtual world so that you can delight in its most important and famous exhibitions. With a 360-degree view, you can view in detail each of the exhibited pieces and consult information with a click.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has an impressive architecture. This jewel located in New York can also be visited via the Internet. The museum makes available to the virtual public some of its most precious collections.

The British Museum has a collection of more than 8 million pieces, some of which can be admired online. Additionally, the museum partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to provide tours using Google Street View technology.

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution provides a virtual tour that allows you to view its exhibits in detail and calmly.

The National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., offers a glimpse of its incredible treasures through a virtual tour of the entire campus. You will be able to appreciate its exceptional displays with a 360-degree view.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, better known as the Met, shares an online collection as well as virtual tours so you can appreciate truly impressive pieces.

The Dalì Theater-Museum located in the city of Figueres, in Catalonia, Spain, dedicates its entire collection to Salvador Dalì. This museum provides tours of the gardens and some of its exhibits.

NASA also provides virtual tours through the Langley Research Center in Virginia, and through the Glenn Research Center in Ohio. Additionally, the Houston Space Center also has an application that provides tours, augmented reality experiences, and videos and audio stories about space exploration.

The Vatican Museums have a wide collection of unmatched works of art and classical sculptures, cured by the Popes over many centuries. You can virtually tour the museum grounds and its iconic exhibits, and of course appreciate Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.

Google’s art project encompasses a partnership with more than 1200 cultural institutions around the world to register priceless works of art and provide virtual museum tours using Google Street View technology. Google’s art project displays artwork from the White House, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, and even street art from São Paulo, Brazil.

What options to choose from?

Among so many alternatives, you may feel overwhelmed and do not know where to start, but we will give you some tips that can help you in this task:

• Take into account the people who make up your family, and if possible form groups according to age, this applies especially when there are children and adolescents.
• You can also form groups according to the interests of the members of your family.
• Take into account, and this is very important, how many devices they have to access online education.
• Define with the participation of all, a schedule for academic activities.
• Design a homework program, museum visits, or studies with the information from the previous points.
• Try to balance activities so that everyone stays interested and motivated. For example, one day she schedules studies, another day exercises, another day visits to museums or zoos, etc.
• You can also schedule leisure activities as recognition of performance in different educational activities.

The alternatives are countless, you just have to choose the one that is most beneficial to you and your family.