During this seemingly never-ending lockdown, you might find yourself with more time on your hands than usual, and quite possibly, you’ll be looking for ways to fill it.

There are many places offering extra free material to aid you in this, so we decided to put together a little list of some great resources that you might find useful right now.

lockdown

ONLINE COURSES

MoMA

MoMA in New York are offering a few online courses that look amazing, some of the titles include: What Is Contemporary Art?, Seeing Through Photographs, and Art & Ideas: Teaching with Themes.

many of these courses require around 11 hours of learning time, can be done at your own pace, and are free to do (although you have to pay if you would like the certificate. More information can be found HERE

Edx

EdX.org is a great website that offers courses right the way from short courses that take a few hours, to accredited Masters Degrees. Most of the short courses are free (but again you have to pay if you want a certificate), and you can learn at your own pace. There are hundreds of courses to choose from, from institutions such as The University of Oxford, MIT, and Harvard University. Find out more HERE

Masterclass

MasterClass is the streaming platform that makes it possible for anyone to watch or listen to hundreds of video lessons taught by 80+ of the world’s best. Lessons are given by greats such as Martin Scorsese, Neil Gaiman, Malcolm Gladwell, Werner Herzog, Spike Lee and many more. Annual membership costs £170, and with that you have full access to all of the material from all of the courses. Find out more HERE

Shaw Academy

The Shaw Academy offers diplomas in subjects such as coding, social media marketing, and graphic design. Their courses are divided into 4 modules, and you can currently sign up to do the first module of any course in 30 days for free. IF you wish to complete the full 16 week Cours, most are around £150. Keep an eye out for one-click purchasing on here, as there are quite a few buttons that will charge you for extra material if clicked. Learn more HERE

New Skills Academy

The New Skills Academy offers a multitude of CPD-accredited courses, and regularly offer discounts through things like Groupon and Wowcher. Their site is currently down for maintenance, but can usually be viewed HERE

Oxford University

Oxford University offers lots of short courses that can be done at your own pace. Many of them are free, and they also offer some more in-depth courses at a reduced rate. These can be viewed HERE

LEARNING RESOURCES

Video – How to Learn any Language in Six Months by Chris Lonsdale

Chris Lonsdale is Managing Director of Chris Lonsdale & Associates, a company established to catalyse breakthrough performance for individuals and senior teams. In addition, he has also developed a unique and integrated approach to learning that gives people the means to acquire complex technical knowledge in short periods of time. This talk is about learning languages specifically, but the approaches are easily-transferrable. Watch it HERE

Video – The first 20 hours – how to learn anything by Josh Kaufman

Josh Kaufman is the author of the #1 international bestseller, ‘The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business’, as well as the upcoming book ‘The First 20 Hours: Mastering the Toughest Part of Learning Anything.’ Josh specialises in teaching people from all walks of life how to master practical knowledge and skills. In his talk, he shares how having his first child inspired him to approach learning in a whole new way. Watch it HERE

Video – How to motivate yourself to change your behaviour by Tali Sharot 

Dr. Tali Sharot is a neuroscientist at University College London and the director of the Affective Brain Lab. She is a faculty member of the department of Experimental Psychology, a Wellcome Trust Fellow, and currently a visiting Professor at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on how emotion, motivation, and social factors influence our expectations, decisions, and memories. Watch it HERE

PODCASTS

21 Educational Podcasts

Here is a great list of 21 educational podcasts that can be listened to whenever, on topics such as history, politics, health, and many more. Thanks to Listen Money Matters for this amazing list. Read it HERE

The Delphian Podcast

What better time than now is there to catch up on the 20+ episodes of our podcast? Listen on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, or HERE

BOOKS

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for enjoyment and education. Find it HERE

ARTWORK RESOURCES

Art Model Tips

Art Model Tips is a free-to-use catalogue of thousands of life model poses. Including seating, standing, crouching and recumbent poses from all body types, this is a resource that is invaluable for figurative artists. It also provides a lot of advice and FAQs for models, and those hosting life drawing sessions. Find it HERE

Online Life Drawing

Hackney Wick Life Drawing are offering online life drawing for a minimal fee, and they are now excepting those currently engaging with #NHS mental health services and offering HLWD sessions as a free online prescription if referred by a doctor. Find out more HERE

 

Related: Looking after your mental health