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  • ALISON— A Trove of 400 Free Online Job Training Courses

    in Education, Online Courses, Technology

    How many of us have taken an online course to learn a new language? My guess is, a lot. How many have used the web to find a recipe? Even more. But as handy as those skills are, will they help anybody land a job?

    While unemployment figures hover at just above 8 percent, analysts say that the numbers are much higher for low-skilled workers. Skill-sets are out of sync with the demands of today’s job market and fewer companies than ever offer on-the-job-training for rudimentary workplace skills, like how to use a computer or work in an office environment.

    ALISON—an Irish company with an uncatchy longer moniker: Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online—provides free online courses in job-friendly skills. Some are basic but essential—Fundamentals of Google Docsor Touch Type Training. Others are more specialized (Programming in Adobe Flash) and many could be useful for anybody, job seeking or not (Protect Yourself From Identity Theft).

    ALISON focuses on the practical, culling free courses from a range of publishers that will upgrade anyone’s employment skills. The site has a million registered users across the globe and is adding 50,000 learners every month. Un- or under-employed people can get help planning their career path with a course that takes from 1-2 hours. The course includes an assessment and a discussion forum.

    While many sites offer academic instruction, relatively few offer free workplace skill instruction and ALISON selects courses for their quality and interactivity. The site is so robust and straight-forward that government workplace centers in 18 states use it as a tool to help clients beef up their resume skills.

    Of the 400 available courses, the most popular is also one of the most comprehensive. ABC IT  is a 15-20 hour comprehensive introduction to IT literacy. It integrates basic concepts of computing, Microsoft Office applications and touch type training, as well as big-picture discussion of how computing can be an everyday feature of life and work.

    The site itself serves as an example of computing as a tool for social change. “We believe that all certifiable or standards-based learning for every subject can be made available for free online,” ALISON founders write on the site. “We also believe that Article 26 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states ‘Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free . . .’ will, through ALISON, become a reality.”

    As always, when you’re done visiting ALISON’s catalogue, don’t forget to spend time with our big collection of 500 Free Online Courses from great universities. There’s no shortage of career-enhancing courses here, including a long list of classes dedicated to IT and computer science.

    Via the New York Times.

    Kate Rix is an Oakland based freelance writer. See more of her work atkaterixwriter.com

  • Infographic and Video on Buying a Used Car

     

     

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  • I saw this on the Internet, I have no idea if he has built it, but if he does, I am sure it will be at IKEA.  Read more at Springwise

    The Ar Vag by design student Thibault Penven is a DIY canoe that can be packed away after use.

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  • In the day and age where advancements to technology (specifically the Internet) are happening at such a high pace, it’s sometimes easy to feel like you’ve been left in the dust. Among all the new phones, tablets and even TVs that are seemingly coming out every month, the position of being completely technologically current is less and less stable. Some things are more permanent than others, though, while still advancing quickly; things like methods of connecting.

    Today’s infographic is brought to you by StrongVPN.com and it explains the many helpful uses of having a VPN (or Virtual Private Network) on your connection. Let’s say you’re taking a vacation in a foreign country, one whose Internet restrictions don’t allow access to the same sites that you would normally go to. With a VPN you would be able to use an American or British IP so that you can still upload all of those fun vacation videos on the go. They even allow you to secure your browsing in public WiFi hotspots.

    For more information on VPNs and their uses refer to the infographic below.

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  • We hope you like dining at food trucks, because it looks like they’re here to stay. According to data released in this information-packed infographic by Column Five Media, there was a nearly unanimous agreement by those surveyed that food trucks are a staple in our dining scene. It’s no longer just fast food or sit down restaurants, food truck dining is another option.

    Intuit-infographic-FoodTrucks_v1-2

  • imagesI have been reading a great deal of information on the threats and applications, the bad and the good on Java this summer.  What bothers me the most is that so many people end up with that silly extra tool installed which leads to issues all because some less bright marketing person decided that a critical component of the Internet should bring along a piece of junk in the payload. 

    I finally read this simple Hack at ReadWriteWeb and have decided to pull the plug on Java on my primary browsers.  I will leave one browser with it running to access an application at my place of employment that defines antiquated.  The goal is simply to see if I survive without Java enabled in my browsers.  Should be interesting.

    For nearly everyone, it’s time to dump Java. Once promising, it has outlived its usefulness in the browser, and has become a nightmare that delights cyber-criminals at the expense of computer users.

  • I have been working to improve my posture as a result of a life of slouching as well changing to standing workstations.  I find that when I use good posture that breathing, especially while exercising, and working become easier.  The hard part is working on posture as it begins to work unused muscles and takes more effort than I had expected.

    Then I found that not even what I thought was good posture practices were obvious from this Infographic.  It helped with some information about what to do and not do while at my desk.

    Posture-at-Work-Infographic