Alternative Learning

When studying an online course, I find it helpful to study a topic from a few sources, or supplement a course I'm taking with additional material. For example, I'm currently studying to be a Certified Professional Trainer in a free course offered by ACT.  ACT's certification is quite revolutionary as they offer it free of charge as long as you complete their 300 page textbook and pass their online exam (see previous post: Get Certified).

However, as a suplement to what I'm learning in Physical Training I'm watching lectures on General Human Anatomy from Academic Earth, a website that offers sets of lectures from various universities on a host of different subjects.

I think this is one great way to get a well rounded and (in this case) free education, find your desired course ( I prefer those that offer a diploma or certification at the end), and then supplement your studies with university courses on that subject, you'll be sure to get a well rounded education in that field.

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What I like about certification is that it generally is not as time consuming as taking on a degree program or something of that sort (depending on the certification you're after), but at the same time it does give you the requisite knowledge for those fields and provides you with something more substantial than a free online program or course.

If you're already skilled and knowledgeable in a certain area then it's worth it to become certified.

Expert Rating offers certification in a huge variety of fields, however, some do not take this too seriously, I was looking for a course that would give me certification as a personal trainer and in online forums I found alot both for and against doing a course with certification on this site (see it here). I did find it helpful to look at all the topics and get ideas for areas that I'm experienced in and would like to progress/receive certification  in, then taking that subject that I saw on Expert Rating I googled and found good courses that would provide better training and certification in that specific field. It's your choice in the end, whether to go for it or not.

Oxford College has non degree courses in a variety of subjects, they're mostly less than 400 hours to complete and the name obviously holds alot more water than the above mentioned site.

Penn Foster College also provides Career Training with Certification in a variety of fields.

I'm looking for more credible and accredited institutions that offer short courses and tests for certification, so if you know of any please leave a comment.

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