The internet is full of information, so take advantage of all the free online resources available at your fingertips.

For the most part, the internet gets blamed for society’s downfall, but what if the internet could equip you with practical real-world skills? Ever wanted to become a master at Excel? Or learn how to build your own websites and apps? Thanks to the internet, where there’s a will, there’s a way. There is a whole lot you can teach yourself  if you get online, meaning means you can save yourself money, and more importantly time by avoiding the hassle of having to attend physical classes.

With a little dedication, these online tools can help guide you, giving you more lucrative skills, as well as skills to keep your mind occupied and learning. Here are some of our favourite skills you can learn online for free.

Languages

It’s never too late to learn another language. The benefits are enormous, from helping you advance in your career, to being able to navigate foreign countries with ease. There are dozens of language learning sites out there, but Duolingo is one of the best. Available online or as a mobile app for free, learn with bite-size modules from the basics, and advance to topics like politics and science.

Excel

Excel excellence is useful for just about any job, and will continue to prove invaluable over the course of your career. Chandoo is an online site where Excel experts share their knowledge through tips, tutorials and downloads, all for free.

Learn To Code

What to build an app? What to build a site for your startup? Learn to code. It’s a lucrative skill that is highly desired by most companies. There are a lot of sites that offer cheap or free online coding tutorials, but we suggest Code Academy for their innovative program. Harvard also offers its Introduction to Computer Science course for free.

Coding. Image by Ilya Pavlov via Unsplash.

Public Speaking

Good public speaking is an invaluable skill and will help you articulate yourself better in public domains, but will also help build your confidence when it comes to meetings and presentations. This free video series from TED uses speaker principles of TED Talks to bring the maximum power to you speaker so you can wow your audience. There are also Toastmasters clubs all over Australia as well as internationally which work on building public speaking skills for different scenarios.

Read Faster

If you’re like most people, you have a lot to read – training you need to complete, books you want to read, news to stay updated. Too often we’re confronted with information overload. Spreeder is a free online program that will improve your reading skills and comprehension so that with enough practice, you can double the speed at which you read, saving you a lot of time.

Photography. Image by Marco Xu via Unsplash.

Photography

So, you’ve moved from your phone to buying an actual camera and you’re excited to start taking award-winning photos, but where do you start? Well, Lifehacker’s Basics of Photography is a good place to ease into the depths of digital photography. After the five lessons on offer which cover everything from camera settings to editing, you’re provided with a number of other resources to extend your knowledge.

Figure out Statistics

Learning to understand statistics will help you react intelligently to statistical claims. Used in all fields from accounting and government, to astronomy and the natural and social sciences, statistics can be difficult to understand and interpret, but thanks to UC Berkeley, things are a little easier. The University has uploaded a whole introductory stats class on iTunes.

Drawing

If you’re a chronic doodler, or someone who longs to be an artist, Drawspace offers a handful of free online courses. Even if you’ve been drawing for a while, you’ll find something worth paying attention to with lessons taught by renowned artists.

Make A Good Website

There is always an option to use a pre-existing template to create a website, but they don’t offer much individuality, and there is always a chance someone else will use the same. Ruby on Rails offers an long list of free learning tools for basic to more comprehensive programming experience.

Make A Mobile Game

The University of Reading has a free online course which promises to teach  you how to build a game in Java without needing any programming experience. Flowlab is another platform where you can create simple games online. Check out Game Theory before you get started to cover the basics on game theory.

Pickling

Impress your friends by pickling your own vegetables. They make for great kitchen displays in glass jars, but are a great way to avoid leftover produce going bad. It’ll also mean you won’t need to fork out a lot for expensive pickles from your local gourmet grocer. Learn to pickle like a pro thanks to Travis Grillo and his SkillShare tutorials.

Chess. Image by JEshoots.com via Unsplash.

Chess

Are you tired of being defeated each time the chessboard is brought around? Or maybe you just want to improve on the skills and techniques you already have? Check out Chessacademy to watch videos from chess masters and solve interactive exercises and puzzles.

Negotiate

Feature Image: Learn Online. Image by Windows via Unsplash.