Have a Good Life

I've got a free trial code for educator.com if you are interested. I am a member of Bzzagent.com, which is a site that gives you products to review. For the last couple years, I haven't been very engaged in it, but this educator.com offer caught my eyes. 

For the last year or so, I have been trying to teach myself how to code, which has been difficult at best. I am not very good at teaching myself stuff. I need someone to direct me and guide me. I like to have someone talking to me. So, what educator.com does is allow me to watch actual professors giving lectures. I think this is better than iTunesU in that it doesn't just put a camera up in their lecture hall and call it good. They actually get the professors into a room with a touchscreen monitor and a pen. So, you have three views in the videos, as shown in the pic below.  There is the computer monitor, which is an annotated slideshow, and then there is a camera on the professor. Finally there is a navigation window that allows you to skip forward in the presentation to different parts. 

Overall, I think this is a pretty good way to learn. In schools, it would be a good supplement if a student didn't get something. For a non-student student, it is a really great way to learn on your own. Allegedly, you can even make comments on the videos and have them answered by professors so that actual help is provided. I am not sure yet how that works in real life, but that is one of their plugs. 

Here is the best part: A school can have this in their labs for free. It costs $35/month or $240/year for home use. I really like the idea that this is free for schools. It is actually a pretty good marketing strategy because kids will never have enough time to watch all the videos in all the courses at school, and if it helps them, it would be a good way to get some help at home, at a much lower cost than a personal tutor. 

Courses are available in Math (from MathMagic to Basic Math all the way up to Calculus and AP Stats), Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science (HTML Training, CSS Intro, Java, JavaScript, Introduction to PHP, Wordpress Training). They also have many AP courses available. All the courses are focused on Science and Math. 

So, if you want to give it a shot, follow these steps: 

1. Go to http://www.educator.com and click on "Create Account" or "Subscribe"
2. Make sure "Basic Plan" is selected. (Code Will Not Work Otherwise)
3. Enter your account information.
4. Disregard "Payment Type", you will not be asked to pay.
5. Below the "Continue" button, check "Special Billing" and enter EDUCBMF30
6. Press "Continue" and you are done.

<img src="http://img.bzzagent.com/image/educator.jpg?Type=activity&Activity=6241636359&Campaign=3072098672&Uid=103020&token=13223cc80ca092dff4c0a3f8832bfab1" alt=""/>