Energy of Knowledge

Three Ideas for Learning at Home

Author: Marija Jelić 31.03.2020 • 10 min read

Investing in your own knowledge is currently the best way to use your free time. There is so much content on the internet now, but – where to go? Our dear colleague Marija Jelic gives us the answer to this question through a blog she wrote for Knowledge HUB – an online learning platform we launched with our dear AIESEC fellows. Read it, try it, enjoy it!

Isolate yourself in the world of knowledge,  immerse yourself into the magical world of books, embrace creative quarantine!

Digital education and thirst for self-education have become imperatives of the 21st century. Thanks to the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), we now have a revolution of quality educational and cultural content that has moved seamlessly into our homes. This is how “Digital Enlightenment” has created new generations that draw their knowledge from the precious and vast “digital archives”.

Marija Jelić, expert for cooperation with educational and scientific institutions within NIS’ corporate programme “Energy of Knowledge”.

Marija Jelić, expert for cooperation with educational and scientific institutions within NIS’ corporate programme “Energy of Knowledge”.

For digital gastronomes and online hedonists, I recommend three ways to avoid becoming stuck in a rut in these days of “social distancing”.

Isolate Yourself in the World of Knowledge

Air out your mind, memory and knowledge. Let quality educational content keep you company!

I encourage you to visit global educational online platforms that integrate a number of interesting lectures and courses from the world’s most prestigious universities.

The courses are designed as a combination of video lectures by eminent professors and scientists, exercises, questionnaires and tests. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) were created with an aim of sharing and multiplying knowledge between users from around the world and experts and professors in specific fields. The tagline and title of the “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge” course was an open invitation to reputable universities to adopt concepts of free online courses that would be accessible to the general public.

Coursera.org stands out as one of the highest quality platforms, collaborating with 190 of the world’s leading universities and offering over 450 courses in various thematic areas. A number of courses have the subtitle option in different languages, and almost all courses offer certificates upon taking all of the exams/tests. I also wish to invite you to visit the latest course offered by Yale University under the interesting title “The Science of Well-Being”, which is particularly useful to the student population. Also, take a look at Classcentral.com, which offers courses from 8 elite private universities in the Northeastern United States, known as the Ivy League (Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania). Currently close to 500 courses are active. The Edx.org website integrates courses from MIT, Harvard University, Berkeley and Boston University. The British counterpart to the US platforms is Future Learn, which groups courses from Cambridge and Bristol, collaborates with the British Council, the British Film Institute and UNESCO. I also invite you to explore the platforms Udacity.com, Udemy.com or Iversity.org.

This time of social isolation is ideal for learning new foreign languages or perfecting those we may have neglected. Here I wish to mention the Openculture.com/freelanguagelessons platform, which offers a wide range of free courses in 48 world languages. You can find free English courses on the British Council website, French lessons can be found on the interactive platform Сulturetheque.com, while you can learn Russian on Pushkininstitute.ru. I also want to mention “on-the-go” language learning applications, of which I would single out Duolingo and Busuu.

Immerse Yourself in the Magical World of Books

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home!” Anna Quindlen

Reading is the golden escape from daily routine! Find the world of books on your smartphones or virtual platforms.

The app and platform for online books Bookmate offers free access to Serbian-language editions with the SEDIGDESI code. This application contains books in 15 world languages. Take a peek at the New York Public Library, which, through the SimplyE app, offers its users the option to “borrow” one of 300,000 titles. A membership card and access to professional literature are also offered by Cambridge University https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/textbooks. You can also find a large number of audio books on this platform http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks, but also on https://archive.org/  or https://www.gutenberg.org/.

Embrace Creative Quarantine

Stroll around the world and national museums, applaud the best performances, conduct renowned philharmonic orchestras!

Almost all world museums have “unlocked” access to their virtual tours and contents.  Step into the cultural, historical and artistic heritage of famous European and world museums. The most extensive virtual art collection awaits you on the platform https://artsandculture.google.com/. From exhibitions in the country I would like to single out the virtual walk through the exquisite exhibition of sculptures by maestro Ivan Meštrović at the National Museum in Belgrade and the exhibition “Inspired by Italy” at the Matica Srpska Gallery in Novi Sad.

Watch the best performances of domestic and international first-line theatre troupes, remind yourself of famous titles from the rich fund of the Yugoslav Film Archive, support up and coming film festivals: http://mojoff.net/.

Visit the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall (code BERLINPHIL), as well as the renowned Metropolitan and Paris Opera.

If you become tired or bored with these “terrestrial” activities, take a wander into the world of celestial bodies and constellations – on NASA’s website you will find the most beautiful free archive of photos and videos.

And don’t forget, “to know, to think, to dream, i​t’s all there”! Victor Hugo