Most of our readers are not technology specialists, but we all have to make technology decisions every day. How do you base your decisions when you don’t know the criteria? We found a nice little list and have shared a portion of it here with you.
There are encyclopedia sites for quick answers, and there are video sites for extended screencasts. All of these are free.
Technology Education
- Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia website. Wikipedia has more than 82,000 active contributors working on more than 19,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages. As of today, there are 3,792,002 articles in English. Wikipedia can provide you with an overview and history of a technological subject, as well as a list of references to learn more on your subject
- WhatIs.com. WhatIs.com is an education tool on information technology. It contains over 4,500 individual encyclopedic definitions and topics, as well as a number of fast reference pages and learning tools. The topics contain approximately 12,000 hyperlinks between the topics and other reference sites.
- HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks offers easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works. The site also provides consumer opinions, and access to independent expert ratings and reviews. All of the information you need to make a purchasing decision.
- Best Tech Videos. Best Tech Videos is a user driven social content website dedicated to finding the best educational videos for developers, designers, managers and other people in IT. Videos are submitted by the community, and then approved by moderators. The site has nearly 11,000 videos and over 6,000 hours of content.
- TechXtra. TechXtra is a search-engine for subject-based information in computing, mathematics, and engineering resources. It cross-searches from 31 different collections, including content from over 50 publishers and providers.
- Cisco WebEx. In addition to being a conferencing tool, the Cisco WebEx platform offers hundreds of educational webinars. The majority of the webinars are business and computing-related, though there are a variety of other subjects, including health and fitness, and arts and culture.
- YouTube. YouTube hosts videos on all aspects of technology. For example, there are approximately 1,000 technology videos just on the Google Developers Channel.
- InfoWorld. InfoWorld provides technical analysis on key products, solutions, and technologies for buying decisions. It seeks to explain to senior technology decision makers how these technologies work, and how to use them to drive business.
- iTunes U. iTunes U is a distribution system for educational videos on a wide variety of subjects, including business and technology. There are over 350,000 free lectures, videos, and other resources already on iTunes U.
- AlphaGalileo. AlphaGalileo is an independent source of research news for technology, business, science, and applied science. Access news information, library and multimedia resources, broadcast media, and technical blogs.
- Encyclopedia.com. Encyclopedia.com provides free access to a collection of online encyclopedias and published sources like Oxford University Press and Columbia Encyclopedia. It contains nearly 200,000 reference entries and more than 50,000 multi-media topic summaries.
- Ask.com. Ask.com is a search engine designed to answer questions. In addition to its search capabilities, it has a Q&A section where you can ask direct questions that are answered by Ask’s Q&A partners. Q&A categories include computers, technology, and business and finance.