Each Wednesday I offer a review on either a book or a product.

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I am a big fan of education and a bigger fan of free education. We live at an amazing time in history.  Never before in our country has so much information been so readily available to the masses.

My kids use Khan Academy almost daily as part of their homeschool curriculum.  They take piano and violin and guitar lessons via the internet.  We have apps on iPads to teach everything from math to geography for foreign languages.

Information is at our fingertips and the most difficult thing about it is avoiding time drains.  Sorting through the endless resources to find what is helpful and needful without falling into the vortex of time wasters.

I’m a homeschooling mom of 4 kids.  I am a blogger, an author and a business owner.  Life is insane and I love it.  I love to learn things along side my kids that I either never learned in school or have long forgotten.  I love growing my business by studying on new ideas, new techniques, new approaches.  There is more that I don’t know than I do now, yet I continue to try to close that gap.

One of my favorite ways to do that in this phase of life is via Coursera.  Part of the trend of open source education, Coursera offers numerous courses on a wide range of topics from the top universities in the world, for FREE.

Each course (or most courses) offer a paid option where you can complete the course, do the assignments and finish with a certification.  This may be needed or desired if one is looking to gain skills for their resume either to change fields or for career advancement.

But for those of use with an insatiable desire to learn, not needing the official certification, you can go through any course completely free.

I am currently getting my fill of business related courses on how to bring a physical product to market.  I am learning from the best at Wharton, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the London Business School.

I get to learn from the top professors at the top schools.  I can learn what I need to learn, skip the topics that are not currently applicable, and without having to go anywhere or pay anything.

Once I have my current projects under control, growing smoothly and managed, and am ready to move on to the next challenge, I can search out the courses that are applicable and repeat the process.

In the meantime, I can set up my budding author of a daughter with a Creating Writing course from Wesleyan University and when my son is ready, I can enroll him in the various programming courses covering whichever languages he desires to learn.

While technology is often a thorn in my side as I feel tethered to email, and the internet and this blog, and everything else, it is also an incredible blessing.  If kept in check and used rightly, our technological age can produce the next generation of students who are so far advanced from where you and I were at age 18 or 25.  The academic equivalent of an Ivy League degree can be obtained for free via the web, putting the next generation in the most wonderful position of bringing great innovation to our world.

Coursera is part of that process.  So go check it out!