Best Sites to Take Online Courses & Learn New Stuff

Wish you could go back to school along with your kids? You can (and this time around you'll get to skip gym class!). Put your brain to work at your convenience by checking out these cool online courses and other educational resources, many of which are free. Academic Earth aggregates free lecture videos and video courses from top colleges like Harvard, Yale, and MIT. You can search by topic or university, and also see top-rated instructors. (You'll also find information here about online bachelor's and masters degrees, professional courses, and courses for credit.) Check out more video course content from colleges and universities around the world at YouTube EDU and iTunes U. Einztein is a search engine for online education. The New York Times Knowledge Network offers a variety of courses, on topics as varied as wine, the teenage brain, DNA, and cancer. Registration online is easy and the cost of the courses vary ("California Wines: Napa Cabernet," for example, is $65, while Article Writing I is $495); there are also for-credit courses and certificate programs. And if you want to play teacher, check out Udemy, the "Academy of You," which allows users to create and post online courses themselves. It truly is a user-generated education.

What courses would you like to take online? Leave it in the comments!