Gone are the times when you have to drag yourself to a library to learn something, with the internet and this list at your fingertips, you will be able to gain access to lectures from some of the world’s best colleges, hear some inspirational talks and discover wonderful and useful information.

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1. Academic Earth

Academic Earth, founded by Richard Ludlow, aggregates lectures from some of America’s top universities – including Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford – in to one easy to navigate place.

The subjects range from architecture, to computer science, to Law, to Philosophy. There is also a lively community behind the site, so each lecture is graded and many can be downloaded as well. Sometimes you can even access the contents of entire courses.

2. TED – Ideas worth spreading

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is an absolutely brilliant service. It contains a plethora of talks from innovators, comedians, designers, entertainers and many others from countless field.

The site is extremely easy to navigate, you can sort the talks using a range of categories and subject areas. All talks can be downloaded as either video or audio. Moreover, new talks are constantly being added and I personally guarantee that you will find a talk that will either inspire, entertain or teach you something.

3. LearnersTV

Learnerstv.com offers thousands of video lectures, notes, slides and other resources in a range of topics, though the majority are in science based subjects. I’ve found the natural science, computer science, medicine and management lectures to be particularly good and varied. At the time of writing this article there was a massive 9487 lectures on the site for your consumption!

4. MIT Open Courseware

This is a initiative by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has a whopping 1900 courses on offer with the same materials that they use to teach the undergraduate and some graduate courses.

Obviously a lot of the courses are science and engineering based, but there are plenty on offer in other areas as well (economics, gender studies, literature and more). Admittedly, it’s not as easy a site to navigate as some of the others, and video content must be viewed/downloaded either view iTunes or YouTube.

5. Lonely Planet

Of course, not everything has to be about engineering and literature; lonely planet has the must read guides people who wish to travel pretty much anyone in the world.

Offering practical tips from when and where to go, to history, work & study information to much more. Additionally there is a good range of beautiful pictures and videos.

6. MetaFilter

Probably the odd one out in this list, MetaFilter (or MeFi) provides a day-to-day commentary on news in subjects as wide ranging as politics, science, religion and technology.

The site (actually more accurately a blog) is wholly community based, and a very lively one at that. Of particular note is the askMeFi section, where you get answers to, view and answer useful questions.

Activity: Go and listen/read/watch to at least one lecture or talk. Let me know in the comments which one and how you found it.

Do you have any other resources that’s worth mentioning? Let me know in the comments.

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