"it's helped me think, yes, I am an ok person and that people value my opinion; it's good for your self esteem" Susan Rowlands
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Ready for a Change?

Full time, 1 year, Foundation Certificate courses. No prior qualifications needed, bursaries and accommodation available for eligible applicants. Next intake September 2010.

Week and weekend courses in Coleg Harlech

On-line Resources

The following are a mix of free internet resources to support learning across the WEA currriculum.

Intute - Search a vast collection of web resources specially selected and evaluated for education and research.
Covers most subject areas with 4 main subject hubs: Science and Technology, Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences,Health and Life Sciences. NB This resource replaces the Resource Discovery Network and its associated hubs.

NewsUK - Search regional and national news publications for current or previous news stories.

Biz/ed is a free online service for learners and tutors of business, economics, accounting, leisure and recreation, and travel and tourism.

The BBC website has a wealth of quality material e.g. their Webwise online course
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/) and resources for learning Welsh (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh/)

Library of Wales There are two excellent online resources Know UK and News UK, these can be accessed by creating an account with Library of Wales. Anyone can register for free if they have a welsh post code.
Once registered these resources can be found under the "references resources"

Multimedia Training Videos Excellent resources here for teachers and learners

For Students with Dyslexia

Dyslexia-college - excellent for adults, includes study tips

Dyslxia-college discussion forum for people with dyslexia

xtraordinarypeople includes interviews from celebrities

Dyslexia-adults.com general adult focussed information

On-line Encyclopedia

How Stuff Works - The site is increasingly commercial but still has excellent articles under categories such as
Auto, Science, Health, Electronics etc. Now includes a collection of videos.

Wikipedia - The free online encyclopedia that is freely editable by all. Quality can vary and its reliability is often debated.

Encyclopedia Britannica - The online version has (very) concise articles freely available.

The World Factbook is an annual publication by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with basic information about the various countries of the world, such as demographics, industry, government etc.

On-line Dictionary

The authoritative Oxford English Dictionary is only available on subscription but can be accessed through many local library services.
For those without access to Oxford English Dictionary, AskOxford provides a comprehensive listing.

A free Welsh dictionary from the University of Lampeter.

On-line Tutorials

The Virtual Training Suite provides free Internet tutorials to help you learn how to get the best from the Web for your education and research. Subject-specific online tutorials to teach Internet and research skills.

Internet Detective - An online tutorial using a Film Noir theme to teach basic internet skills for college and university work.

TONIC - A free online tutorial "easy-to-understand, practical guide to using the Internet produced by Netskills."

On-line Teaching and Learning

Many sites have been set up to promote the sharing of teaching and e-learning resources. These aim to be of use to busy tutors who may not have time to create their own resources - learners' may also find the resources useful.

NGLF - The Welsh portal to teaching and learning online, including many Welsh language resources.

QIA Excellence Gateway - Website for Adult & Community Learning which includes an E-learning Resource Exchange.

OpenLearn - now anyone can access free online learning with The Open University.

BBC Raw - A guide to developing better reading and writing skills.

Teach-ICT - This site is dedicated to teaching ICT at all levels. Learners will find revision notes to learn the ICT subject along with plenty of quizzes, competitions, and polls to keep things interesting.
Tutors will find starters and plenaries along with Schemes of Work ( SoW) , lesson ideas and an extensive range of free material.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT OpenCourseWare provides free lecture notes, exams and videos from MIT. No registration is required.

Merlot - A US-sponsored site which has categorized links to online learning and teaching resources. Free e-books tend to be in the social sciences and humanities. Also they're often older texts which are in the public domain or copyright cleared.

Free E-Books/Journals

Check the sites below for any key or recommended texts - you can create direct links to individual titles.

Project Gutenberg - The oldest site for free e-books provided by volunteers. Contains many classic titles.

Catalogue of Free E-Books- This is an Australian site and provides a catalogue for e-books all over the world.

Google Book Search - Currently in trial "beta" mode, this new development from Google will search the fulltext of books and you have the option to limit your search to "Full view books" which you can access online.

Many academic journals are freely available on the web. Some key directories are listed below.
It is also worth checking any print journal and magazine subscriptions to see if they allow free online access

Directory of Open Access Journals - This comprehensive listing covers all subject areas. You can browse by subject or search for titles or articles.