20+ Free Online Courses Available Now

Many companies, ministries, and others, are offering free online courses.

Have you wanted to learn a new language, but never got around to it? You may have a bit of time to fit some online learning into your life.

Stressed? Learning a new skill can help reduce stress, according to this Harvard study.

You may be looking for a creative outlet to reduce stress or just because you’ve always wanted to take up watercolor or guitar.

Whatever your reason, here’s a short list of free online courses. Some are for limited time periods.

Crank Up Your Creativity

Free piano lessons until September 1st for adults and children through Home School Piano (See CC in NOTES).

Three months of free guitar lessons from FenderPlay (See CC in NOTES). 

Writing the Short covers the fundamentals of screenwriting in 5 weeks (See CC in NOTES). 

Creativebug from JoAnn Fabrics offers a two-month free trial for thousands of art and craft classes (See CC in NOTES). 

All online cooking classes from Milk Street are free through May 31st (See CC in NOTES). 

Drawabox is always free. These drawing exercises build on each other and help you grow in your skills.

For a review of online art courses that are free right now, watch this video by Brad Colbow.

Learn how to make social media graphics with Canva’s free tutorials.

Lots of Photography Courses

Nikon (See CC in NOTES) is offering free photography classes through the end of May.

Professional Photographers of America is offering all 1,100+ photography classes for free through the end of May (See CC in NOTES). 

9 free classes for photography and photo editing reviewed by Business Insider.

OPTIC (Outdoor Photo Travel Imaging Conference) is free this year. Enjoy two days of content June 7 and 8 on wildlife, landscape and travel photography. Here’s the Eventbrite registration.

Skillshare

Skillshare is offering a 2-month free trial with 2000+ courses in business, tech, and art (See CC in NOTES).

You’ll find these Skillshare courses and more:

• Animation
• Creative Writing
  • Ebooks
  • Fiction
  • Screenwriting
• Film & Video
• Fine Art
  • Watercolor
• Graphic Design
• Illustration
• Marketing
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
• Music
  • Songwriting
• Photography
• Web Development

From Cru

Know some university students that would be interested in 10 weeks of diving deeper into God’s Word this summer? Or, maybe you’d like to be a coach. Check out Cru’s Summer of Theology. We have a huge need for Cru staff to volunteer as coaches. Registration closes Friday, June 19. Contact Patrick dot Martin at cru dot org.

Why not check out the Train & Grow section of Cru.org? You’ll find Bible studies, parenting help, and evangelism and discipleship tools and training. Maybe you could help others learn to share their faith. Go to Train & Grow / Share the Gospel. Under this section, dive deeper into:

For Your Family

Rosetta Stone (See CC in NOTES) is offering 3 months free language learning for your children K – 12.

Free educational documentaries from Netflix.

And More!

Ligonier Connect Group studies are free for a limited time. Invite friends to take any course together.

Learn to build a blog or website on WordPress in a week or less from wpbeginner.

Brush up on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) knowledge. Moz Academy is offering free training through May 31st (See CC in NOTES).

Browse Udemy for free courses in tech, leadership and language (See CC in NOTES).

If you know of more free courses, please comment below or on social media and I’ll be glad to add to this list.

NOTES:

• Class Central (CC) has a page for you to check out: Free Online Leaning Due to Cornavirus (Updated Continuously). I didn’t even make it to the bottom of their list. When you’re on the other side of the pandemic, you’ll still want to browse Class Central. For any courses in the above list marked CC, go to the CC article for more details, such as:
  • To learn how much money you’re saving with these limited-time free courses.
  • To see if the course is available in your country.
  • To find out if you need to pre-pay (that is, you’ll have to remember to cancel before the trial period is up if you want to take that course for free).
• The photo of the girl by Leonardo Toshiro Okubo on Unsplash