Is it possible for us to learn any subject that we have no idea about by working on it only by ourselves? In my opinion one of the best examples that proves this is possible; is Professor Sugata Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” experiment.

Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University in England and is described as a polymath owing to his researches spanning in a wide range of disciplines. In an experiment he conducted in 1999, known as the Hole in the Wall, he placed a computer in a wall in a slum at Kalkaji, Delhi and children were allowed to use it freely. The experiment aimed at proving that children could be taught by computers very easily without any formal training. After this first one in Kalaji, the experiment was repeated in many places and theresults demonstrated that groups of children, irrespectively of who or where they are, can learn to use computers and the Internet on their own with public computers in open spaces such as roads and playgrounds, even without knowing English. In these studies the children also managed to learn how to speak in English, how to use Google to prepare their homework and even the topics in the field of biotechnology, on their own.

It was possible for children to learn many subjects, even the ones in the field of biotechnology, in a language they did not know. I believe it is possible for all of us to learn anything we want by ourselves. Today there are hundreds of articles, blogs, websites and other resources on the web that we can use for learning. I would like to share my favorite free learning and development resources on the web.

Coursera
Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. The web site offers courses on various subjects such as business management, information, and social sciences. Courses are offered on a regular basis, and are done more like a traditional college with weekly lessons and assignments. Duration of the courses vary from four weeks up to 20 weeks or more.    

TED
TED Conferences have become phenomena in recent years. Everyday around 340,000 users visit www.ted.com website and monitor the speeches. On the platform there are many informative speeches that generally last less than 18 minutes. With its content the website is a great training and development resource.

Quora
Quora is a question-and-answer website created, edited and organized by its community of users. The website aggregates questions and answers according to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users’ answers. With its rich and up-to-date content the website is a source for knowledge.

EdX
EdX is a non-profit created by founding partners Harvard and MIT. The website aims to bring the best of higher education to students around the world. EdX offers massive open online courses (MOOCs) and interactive online classes in subjects including law, history, science, engineering, business, social sciences, computer science, public health, and artificial intelligence.

Khan Academy
The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The stated mission is to provide a free world-class education for anyone anywhere. The website supplies a free online collection of more than 4,500 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching subjects such as mathematics, history, healthcare, medicine, finance, physics and computer science. Khan Academy has delivered over 260 million lessons.

Resources
Coursera. Retrieved 08 16, 2013, from https://www.coursera.org/#courses
EdX. Retrieved 08 16, 2013, from https://www.edx.org/
Khan Academy. Retrieved 08 16, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy
Quora. Retrieved 08 16, 2013, from www.quora.com
TED. Retrieved 08 16, 2013, from http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html
TED. Retrieved 08 16, 2013, from www.ted.com
Wikipedia. Retrieved 08 16, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugata_Mitra