Online courses directory (19947)

Many people find it much easier to visualize concepts and information by capturing text notes, files and images etc. and organizing them into coherent patterns and meanings, and the Web has made the presentation of visual information more accessible as part of the learning environment which facilitates more lateral thinking in students. SpiderScribe is a Web application that allows users connect and organize separate pieces of information into ideas, and when used in a learning environment it enhances the thinking process of students who have to work in a collaborative manner with other students. This free online course about SpiderScribe will take you through various elements of the Web application, from setting up a mapping function through to using the feedback process and how to share content and comments. You will learn how to drag and drop various objects such as images, text files, maps, calendars and links, as well as embed documents from Microsoft Office and PDF files, and finally how to link these objects into a coherent visual association. Account management tasks are also clearly explained such as accessing maps, exporting them as images and sharing them with peers and colleagues for input and feedback. This free online course about SpiderScribe will be of great interest to teachers and trainers looking to actively engage students in free-association and problem solving processes.<br />

Online presentations are becoming more popular as a means of teaching and training both for the teacher delivering the material and for students who may be in different geographic locations. VoiceThread is an application for publishing online multimedia presentations and allows students and colleagues navigate through the slide show and leave comments using voice, text, audio file or video using a webcam. This free online course about VoiceThread will take you through the Web application, from setting up a presentation through to the sharing of content. You will learn how to add various types of objects, pictures, videos, etc., set up their titles, descriptions and links. With these elements in place you will then learn how students can leave feedback and comments about the presentation as well as draw on the images for emphasis. VoiceThread account management tasks are also clearly explained, such as how to access a presentation to edit and share it. This free online course will be of great interest to teachers and trainers who want to use the power of the Web to make presentations to students in different locations and receive feedback and comments from these students.<br />

Heredity is the genetic transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring. Many of these characteristics, particularly the dominant ones, have a physical manifestation like hair colour or colour blindness, but other traits can skip generations until the right combination of genes allows a regressive trait to appear. This free online course about heredity will look at how traits are passed on, why some traits form part of our physical makeup and why we only carry others in our genes but never express them. You will learn how to work out ratios of traits that are present in both the genotype and phenotype using the Punnett Square method and the Hardy-Weinberg Principle. You will also learn how bacteria change their DNA over time and how this impacts on human health. Similarly you will learn how viruses replicate and how they can change human DNA. This free online heredity course will be of great interest to all learners who wish to pursue a career in sciences such as biology, medicine, zoology or botany and to any individual who simply wants to learn more about how traits are inherited and changed.<br />

Matter exists in four states - solid, liquid, gas and plasma and it will change state depending on the temperature and pressure applied to the matter. In this free online chemistry course about states of matter you will learn about the characteristics of each of the four states and the amount of energy that can be added to or taken from a substance before it starts to change state. As all substances change state at different temperatures and pressures you will learn how to use phase change diagrams to plot the energy and pressure levels, the triple point, critical temperature, boiling and melting points associated with different substances. You will also learn in a step by step manner how to calculate the change in energy needed to move a substance along the state of matter spectrum. This free online chemistry course will be of great interest to all students who wish to pursue a career in any of the sciences such as chemistry, physics, biology or geology, or the individual learner who simply wants to learn and understand what is happening when matter changes from solid to liquid to gas.<br />

If you are a student wanting to learn C programming, or an adult learner simply researching C programming courses, this free introductory course is for you.<br /><br />The C programming language is one of the most popular and widely used programming languages. It is a general-purpose programming language and there are very few computer systems in existence that are not set up for its use (i.e. where a C compiler does not exist).<br /><br />This C programming tutorial and course introduces you to the basics of programming in C. You will learn how programming languages work with data, what program flow is, and how to use functions, methods and routines. You will also get step-by-step instructions on how to create simple C programs and how to run them all while you learn C programming. <br />

The amount of energy required to change the state of a substance depends on how strong or weak the bonds between the molecules are. For substances with strong bonds at standard temperature and pressure, like diamonds, it is extremely difficult to separate the molecules, whereas substances with weak bonds, like helium, remain in a gaseous form and do not condense into liquid or solid states. In this free online chemistry course you learn more about factors that affect the chemical nature of substances. You will learn why substances changing state can also be affected by mixing substances together. The course explains about using water as a solvent and mixing in different substances to see the effect on the boiling and melting points of the solution. This is followed by step by step examples of working out what the change in boiling or melting point will be based on the amount of solute added. This free online chemistry course will be of great interest to all students who wish to pursue a career in any of the sciences such as chemistry, physics, biology or geology, or the individual learner who simply wants to learn more about factors that affect the chemical nature of substances.<br />

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of oral communication and plays a very important role in education, particularly for younger children. Teachers and trainers who incorporate storytelling into their repertoire of teaching skills can enhance student engagement with almost any subject. In this free online course you will learn about storytelling as a way of organizing information, conveying emotions, and building a sense of community. You will learn how effective storytelling can lead to an altered state of consciousness that deepens the relationship between teacher and students. Three stories are told that illustrate the theoretical model of storytelling and storytelling ethics and the need for trust between storyteller and listeners are discussed. This free online storytelling course will be of great interest to teachers and trainers who want to learn more about the effectiveness of storytelling as a tool that can enhance learning within the classroom.<br />

This online course was developed by the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies. It is intended for front-line staff working in services for people with disabilities. The online course covers all the essential theory aspects of manual handling instruction. It provides staff with an overview of the relevant Irish Health and Safety Legislation. Understanding how the back works and precautions to take both at home and at work that will prevent injury are covered. The course includes the principles of safe lifting. It is intended as a refresher training course for staff who have previously completed a one day Manual Handling course. This online course covers the theory section, and separately a practical skills training session led by a qualified manual handling instructor (and lasting between 2-4 hours) should be completed within 2 weeks of completion of the course.

The Internet is the global network of interconnected computer networks. It consists of all the private, business, and government networks that are linked together by cable, wireless and optical networking technologies, and uses the Internet protocol suite called TCP/IP to function successfully. In this free online computer networking course about the Internet you will learn about the basics of network communications and how the Internet works. The TCP/IP protocol suite is explained and also how data is transferred from computer to computer around the Internet in milliseconds by a global network of millions of routers and switches. You will also learn how to distinguish the Internet from the World Wide Web, how the Web functions using the HTTP protocol and how Web browsers and Web servers operate to display Web pages. This free online computer networking course will be of great interest to all learners who are interested in a career in IT and networking and would like a thorough introduction to the technologies behind the Internet, and to all learners who would like to learn more about how the Internet functions.<br />

Calculating change in motion is a very important concept to master in physics. When change happens in one dimension it is relatively easy to calculate the variable. However, change rarely happens in just one direction so you need to learn how to manage more than one variable. This free online physics course explains how to visually represent each change in a dimension as a vector so that it can be easily understood. You will learn how to add two vectors together and calculate all the relevant information for the resulting third vector. Working through various examples, including different elevations and inclines, you will learn how to solve for any variable through the use of the right-angled triangle and then use trigonometry and quadratic equations to calculate the relevant variables. This free online physics course will be of great interest to students who are studying physics, chemistry, engineering and mathematics and to any individual who wants to learn more about the movement of objects in two dimensions.<br />

PHP is a widely used programming language which works on the principal of server side scripting to produce dynamic Web pages. It can be easily integrated with HTML and SQL to produce these dynamic web pages, and is often used to process the contents of a Web page form as it is more secure and reliable than JavaScript. This free online PHP programming course gives an overview of how PHP programming works in the Web environment and you will learn what certain commands and lines of code infer within a .php file and review the resultant effect on client side machines. MySQL is an open-source relational database management system which uses structured query language requests for working with data. You will learn how PHP can be combined with MySQL to create a very powerful online database engine. This free online PHP programming course will be of great interest to IT and Web development professionals who would like to learn more about using PHP and MySQL to integrate database functions into Websites, and to learners who would like to learn more about the functionality of PHP and MySQL.<br />

Nursing is a very important profession within the health care sector. The nursing profession focuses on the quality care of sick individuals within hospital settings and also on the care of individuals and families within society. This free online nursing course provides the learner with an overview of the skills, techniques, and approaches required to effectively treat a diverse range of patients. Key elements of the course introduce the learner to aspects and concepts of health, communication techniques and methods used to establish a patient’s basic needs to ensure the necessary care is provided. You will learn about the patient’s reaction to hospitalisation and illness together with the emotional response. You will review the stages of illness along with therapeutic communication techniques, interview techniques and communication approaches to apply when treating patients who are blind, deaf and speakers of other languages. You will also learn about transcultural nursing and how it addresses the issues encountered when providing medical care to diverse cultural groups, or those from cultures different from the nursing professionals. The course material also creates an awareness of the impact and associated challenges that can exist when providing patient care in transcultural settings. This free online nursing course will be of great interest to health care workers who would like to learn more about nursing skills, and to any learner who is interested in pursuing nursing as a career. <br />

JavaScript is a client side scripting language and is one of the most widely used programming languages for the web. The most common use of JavaScript is to write functions which are part of HTML pages and that interact with the Document Object Model (DOM) of the web page. jQuery is used as a library of JavaScript functions that simplifies web page development and AJAX interactions. This free online web programming course will greatly increase your understanding of JavaScript, jQuery and AJAX by showing examples of code and how they function together to provide the interactive and dynamic web pages that are widely used in today’s web environment. You will also learn about AJAX and how it provides JavaScript programmers with a way of coding that widens the scope and functionality for real time updates such as retrieving data from the server side without reloading the entire web page. This free online web programming course will be of great interest to IT and business professionals who would like to learn more about the functionality of JavaScript, jQuery and AJAX and how they work to provide much more dynamic and engaging web pages.<br />

Cellular respiration is a key concept to understand in biology as it involves obtaining energy from the nutrients organisms eat and the removal of waste products. It is a key biological process which is vital to all life forms, including humans. In this free online biology course you will learn about the chemical makeup of the energy that is stored, generally referred to as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), how this molecule works and how it is used in the respiratory process. You will also learn about glucose as it is the main source of energy, and the stages involved in cellular respiration from glycolysis through the Kerb’s cycle to the electron transport chain. You will learn how molecules are split to release energy through oxidization to produce ATP and waste products in the form of water and carbon dioxide. This free online biology course will be of great interest to all students who wish to pursue a career in sciences such as biology, biochemistry, medicine, pharmacy or the individual learner who simply wants to learn more about how we convert our food into energy.<br />

Edmodo is an online application that assists teachers and trainers in leveraging social media to enhance learning in a classroom setting. This free online course about Edmodo will take you through the application, from setting up a group and inviting students to join the relevant group through to creating a central repository of resources that you can use with any group. Key to Edmodo’s appeal to students is the familiarity of the user interface built around postings to a wall, along with the ability to attach any kind of document to the various posts. You will learn how to use the various types of posts, and the differences between the teacher and student views and functionality. General site management tasks are also explained such as closing groups, restricting students from posting content and restricting notification e-mails. This free online course about Edmodo will be of great interest to teachers and trainers who would like to learn more about incorporating the functionality of social media within an educational setting, and to students who would like to manage their academic workload and assignments via a social media platform that is familiar and flexible.<br />

Using vectors to study motion is a fundamental skill to have when studying physics. Vector quantities used to describe the physical world include displacement, velocity, acceleration, and force. In this free online physics course the standard way to represent vectors and their axes as well as unit vector notation are explained in a clear and step-by-step manner. Examples show how to work out the angle or distance necessary to get the desired displacement. Using two known variables you will learn how to work through the process of calculating the remaining value, such as time in air or horizontal displacement using a variety of techniques. This free online physics course will be of great interest to students who are studying physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and to students who wish to pursue a career in any of the sciences or engineering fields, and even the sportsperson who wants to plan for a specific outcome when hitting a golf ball or batting a ball.<br />

Understanding the concept of force and the effects various forces have on objects are very important topics in physics. For example, when you try to move a heavy object it takes more effort to get it moving than to keep it moving because of gravity and the different types of friction involved. In this free online physics course you will learn more about the force of gravity and its counterpart the normal force, and why some objects do not move even when they are on a slope. The force of friction is also discussed, including static and kinetic types, and as friction is dependent on types of the materials involved the course also looks at the coefficient of static friction relative to kinetic friction. Examples of each type of force are worked through giving the learner a clear insight into how forces work together and how to calculate their respective values. This free online physics course will be of great interest to students who are studying physics, chemistry, engineering and mathematics, to students who wish to pursue a career in any of the sciences or engineering fields, and to anybody wanting to understand the dynamics of moving objects on specific surfaces.<br />

Computer science is a diverse topic encompassing computer technology, hardware, software, security, communications, programming, algorithms, functions, and storage. By studying it you will learn how computer science impacts on our daily lives. In this free online computer science course you will start by reviewing bits and binary code, including how they are transmitted and stored, and go all the way to computer algorithms which help solve complex problems in an efficient and cost-effective manner. You will also review various computer systems and architecture such as Linux, Windows, and Mac operating systems. This free online computer science course will be of great interest to IT professionals who would like to review the diverse range of topics found in computer science. It will also be useful to learners interested in a career in IT and computing who would like an introduction to the topic.<br />

If you have studied the Introduction to Programming in C course available on ALISON it is now time to further enhance your C programming skills by studying numbers, variables and arrays and the functionality they have in computer programming. In this free online C programming course you will gain a much greater knowledge and understanding of numbers, variables and arrays. You will learn more about the basics of numeric overflow and how numbers are encoded as characters in ASCII. You will learn more about variables and the connection between function return values and variables. You will also review the use of arrays and pointers, how to create a pointer in C, and assign a value to a pointer. This free online C programming course will be of great interest to IT professionals who want to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the C programming language and its functionality, and to those learners who want to follow on from the Introduction to Programming in C course.<br />

An employer becomes aware of possible illegal or inappropriate conduct by a member of staff. The employer now has to consider what action they will take to establish the facts and, if appropriate, take disciplinary action or contact the police. This free online employee investigation course takes the learner through the role of an Employee Investigator referencing the Private Security industry, the Police force and the law as it applies in the UK. To work within the law in the UK the learner will be introduced to all the major legislation impacting on the role of Employee Investigator, from RIPA and PACE to the TORT law and what constitutes theft. The learner will also be introduced to Employee Rights, how to document any findings from an investigation, how the Employee Investigator should conduct him/herself during the investigation, how to report back to the client and how to proceed with an arrest should that become necessary. This free online employee investigation course will be of great interest to security professionals wanting to work as an Employee Investigator, and to employers and human resource professionals who need to understand the role of the Employee Investigator.<br />