The web is my oyster. It’s jam-packed with ideas, colors, suggestions, education, lessons, movies, art, colors, videos, music and so much more.

Hulu.com has a wide range entertainment including television shows, movies, and documentaries. For instance, you can view an 88 minute movie titled The Future of Food (2007) and get an education that you’d never get in a book. This Hulu movie is ad-supported but you can mute the commercials or subscribe to HuluPlus for a more robust package.

At Ted.com, you can watch and listen to a wide range of speakers talk about education, technology, art, entertainment and most everything else. The speakers are engaging and the end result is memorable.

Howsound.org, (the back story to great radio storytelling) is a bi-weekly podcast on radio storytelling produced by Rob Rosenthal for the Public Radio Exchange (prx.org). Also, I love to listen to eTown, a weekly radio broadcast heard from coast to coast on NPR, public and commercial stations. Every eTown show is taped in front of a live audience and the website has a list of podcasts. Local productions can be so much fun!

Login to iTunes and at the top click on Podcasts or iTunesU and go to places that you will never want to leave. If you select Audio Podcasts, go into All Categories and select something an area that ‘speaks’ to you. Whether you are interested in art, business, education, health, religion or any of the others… you will be there forever and a day.

If you select iTunesU, you can visit universities, colleges, K-12, or go beyond campus. Universities and colleges across the world have put up lectures, seminars, courses and podcasts for you to listen to and learn. You can take a class at Harvard or Yale and decide if that is where you want to study. Or maybe you can follow a professor at Truckee Meadows Community College and explore world religions or marketing. You can use the information here to help you decide what comes next.

If you prefer to NOT use iTunes, go into a search engine and enter “free podcasts” and then have fun making a selection. You must plan to visit youtube.com/education… oh my! Life long learning, college courses, science, math, engineering, languages … it’s all there!

Still not sure where to spend your time … then visit the Smithsonian Museum or check out this page that has a list of online art and museums.

Another place to get free materials is at your local library. You can get audio books, dvds, read journals and magazines as well as borrow music cds. Many libraries have online downloads where you can check out an audio or online book and download it to your computer.

The lessons, materials, educators, information and data are all there – online, free and waiting for us to tap into it. Wherever your passions lie, I am convinced there are websites and free resources that exist that will teach you even more.

Where do you go to learn? Share, share!

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