The Best of Open Culture 2009

≡ Category: Most Popular |2 Comments

Couldn’t let you down. Couldn’t let the year end without giving you a “best of” list. So here it goes. A purely subjective list. 25 items. Some educational; some a little more entertaining; some popular, etc. I hope you enjoy, and you can always search through our complete archive here. Thanks all, and best wishes [...]

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Free eBooks for Your PC, iPhone, Kindle & Beyond

≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Literature, Most Popular, e-books, iPhone |1 Comment

Today, we’re rolling out a sizable collection of Free eBooks, most of them classics, that features major works written by James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Nietzsche and others. (We have even thrown in a little Paulo Coelho.) You’ll find 100+ free ebooks in total, and you can download the texts to your computer, smart phone (iPhone, [...]

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10 Power Tools for Lifelong Learners

≡ Category: Most Popular |11 Comments

Every now and then, we like to remind readers of the audio/video resources that Open Culture makes available to lifelong learners. These collections are all free, and can be downloaded to your computers and mp3 players. When you add it all together, you will find thousands of hours of free educational content here from quality [...]

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Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Film Noir, Documentaries & More

≡ Category: Film, Most Popular |88 Comments

Where to watch free movies online? Let’s get you started. First, we have listed dozens of free, high quality films that you can watch online. Then, below, you can find movie sites that feature free movie collections. Classics, international, film noir, documentaries, indies — they’re all here, waiting to be watched. So please

A Farewell [...]

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Top Ten Reasons Why the Kindle Won’t Be an iPod for Books

≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Books, Most Popular, e-books |24 Comments

A little sidebar to our previous post that wonders whether Amazon’s Kindle can revolutionize the book industry…
1) When you buy an iPod, you can transfer all of your current music onto it. With Kindle you have to start buying all new books.
2) The paper-form book (aka “dead tree version”) is still the best technology for [...]

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Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites

≡ Category: Most Popular, Video - Arts & Culture |36 Comments

Looking for great cultural and educational video? Then you’ve come to the right place. Below, we have compiled a list of 46 sites that feature intelligent videos. This list was produced with the help of our faithful readers, and it will grow over time. If you find it useful, please share it as widely as [...]

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How I Sold My Book by Giving It Away

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Most Popular |21 Comments

Today we’re featuring a piece by Seth Harwood, an innovative crime fiction writer who has used the tools of Web 2.0 to launch his writing career. Below, he gives you an inside look at how he went from podcasting his books to landing a book deal with Random House. If you want to learn more [...]

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How Do You Use Open Courses?

≡ Category: Most Popular, Online Courses, Random |30 Comments

I was asked by a newspaper reporter today how people, like you, are using open university courses (such as those found in our collection of Free Courses). And the truth is, I’m not always sure. So I figured, why not put the question out there and ask you. Here it goes: How are you using these [...]

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Blogs & Podcasts for the Financial Crisis

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Economics, Most Popular |8 Comments

There’s no doubt about it. We’re living in interesting times, as the Chinese curse goes, and they won’t be going away any time soon. Most of us can’t afford to ignore what’s happening here. So, below, I have highlighted a number of blogs and podcasts that help make intelligent sense of this economic debacle. Here they [...]

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The Educational Audio & Video Library

≡ Category: Most Popular |5 Comments

Every now and then, we like to remind those who subscribe to Open Culture via rss feed or email that our site hosts large collections of cultural and educational media. In total, these collections offer thousands of hours of enriching audio and video, and it’s all free. You can download most all of it [...]

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Top 10 Blog Posts of 2008

≡ Category: Most Popular |Leave a Comment

Here they go, the most popular posts of 2008:
10. Free Stanford Computer Science & Engineering Courses Now Online
9.) The Old Man and the Sea Animated
8.) Teaching on YouTube
7.) Turn Your iPod into a Travel Guide: 20 Travel Podcasts
7.) Listening to Famous Poets Reading Their Own Work
6. This American Life Demystifies the Housing/Credit Crisis
5.) Understanding Modern Physics: Download Leonard Susskind Video Lectures
4.) Yale [...]

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70 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube

≡ Category: Google, Most Popular, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society, Video - Science, YouTube |7 Comments

Smart video collections keep appearing on YouTube. But rather antithetical to the ethos of its parent company (Google), YouTube unfortunately makes these collections difficult to find. So we’ve decided to do the job for them. These enriching/educational videos come from media outlets, cultural institutions, universities and non-profits. There are about 70 collections in total, and [...]

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10 New iPhone Apps for the Thinking Person

≡ Category: Apple, Most Popular, Web/Tech |Leave a Comment

In advance of tomorrow’s release of the new 3G iPhone, Apple has launched its new App Store on iTunes, which features new tools that will immediately make the iPhone (and iPod Touch) a more versatile — and, in some cases, enlightening — device. Below, we have highlighted ten apps worth exploring if you’re hungry for [...]

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The Geometry of Sound

≡ Category: Most Popular, Science, Video - Science |5 Comments

On the cooler side ….

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This American Life Demystifies the Housing/Credit Crisis

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Most Popular |1 Comment

There’s been no shortage of articles trying to explain the ongoing housing and mortgage crisis. But none does a more clear and entertaining job than this recent episode of This American Life, “The Giant Pool of Money” (iTunes – Feed – MP3). Step by step, the show traces how we got into this mess. Along [...]

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Teaching on YouTube

≡ Category: Most Popular, YouTube |8 Comments

Today, we have a guest feature by Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media Studies at Pitzer College, in Claremont, CA. This piece consolidates lengthier blog entries about a course she ran on YouTube, called “Learning from YouTube,” in Fall 2007. The whole goal was to better understand this new media/cultural phenomenon, and how it [...]

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10 Ways to Make Your iPod a Better Learning Gadget

≡ Category: Most Popular, Web/Tech |25 Comments

The iPod can supercharge your learning. But it’s often a matter of finding the right software and content. Below, we’ve listed several new pieces of software that will let you suck more educational media (DVDs, web videos, audio files, etc.) into your iPod. And we’ve also listed some important pieces of content that will make [...]

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15 Most Viewed Posts in 2007

≡ Category: Most Popular |3 Comments

We dug back through the historical data and isolated the 15 most viewed posts of the year. If you’re looking for a trend, one will leap out. People like numbered lists. Hence another one:
1) 10 Unexpected Uses of the iPod
2) 25 UC Berkeley Courses Available via Free Video
3) 45 Free Cutting-Edge Books … Courtesy [...]

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Our Ancestral Mind in the Modern World: An Interview with Satoshi Kanazawa

≡ Category: Books, Most Popular, Psychology, Science |19 Comments

Human behavior is notoriously complex, and there’s been no shortage of psychologists and psychological theories venturing to explain what makes us tick. Why do we get irrationally jealous? Or have midlife crises? Why do we overeat to our own detriment? Why do we find ourselves often strongly attracted to certain physical traits? Numerous theories abound, [...]

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Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History

≡ Category: Books, History, Most Popular |1 Comment

Here are a few facts to know about the adventurous Patrick Hunt. He’s a Stanford archaeologist who has spent more than a decade trying to unravel the mystery of how Hannibal, the great ancient military leader, crossed the Alps in 218 BCE with 25,000 men and 37 elephants. (Listen on iTunes to the course he [...]

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  • About Us

    Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.

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