While WriteThru seeks to help journalists learn about the huge variety of technology options out there, there are more than enough topics to go around. Fortunately, there are plenty of mainstream sites that provide free tutorials as well as educational videos.
A relatively new player called Howcast, for example, offers short educational videos on a wide range of topics, reports The New York Times. While the site does not have a lot of depth yet, it is growing quickly.
Of course, the focus of WriteThru is technical knowledge, so after you have watched Howcast’s most popular video, How to Have Sex in a Car, there are also more relevant topics such as How to Install Google Analytics on Your Blogger Blog and How to Make Free Flash Animations.
Another choice is eHow, which offers step-by-step guides on topics such as How to Create Your First Web Site and How to Download Files to Your Computer With an FTP Program. EHow also offers video instructions, complete with advertising, though I had some issues with playback.
CommonCraft offers explanatory videos such as Social Media in Plain English and Blogs in Plain English for $20 each to be used in the workplace. But Common Craft also offers Blogs in Plain English, Twitter Search in Plain English and many other topics for free on YouTube.
Of course, there are dozens if not hundreds of fee-based online learning options. Schools from DeVry to your local college offer online courses that might be more in-depth and meaningful in the long run. Still, as journalists and music industry execs are painfully aware, free has a way of undermining the fee-based choices, at least in the short run.
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