Wednesday, February 4, 2009

14 Web Apps to Help You Learn Everything Online

These days when you want to learn how to do something, the web is usually a wise first port of call. One of the many positive developments of Web 2.0 has been the rise of a whole bunch of high quality web apps dedicated to sharing knowledge online.

In this post, I want to help you tap into 14 innovative social and non-social communities dedicated to helping you learn online: from being more productive to playing guitar along to your favorite song.

Learn to cook

1. imcooked is a web community dedicated to filming and uploading cooking videos.

2. iFoods.tv is another food video community, but this one features professionally produced tutorial videos.

Learn to mix drinks with what you have

3. ExtraTasty allows you to search drink recipes or enter the ingredients you have into the ‘My Bar’ section of the site. Doing so will narrow down the search to only drinks you can make with the ingredients you currently have in your bar.

Learn what rare words mean

4. Definr is a minimalist web interface that performs one important function: to instantly define the word you input. You’ll receive search results almost before you’ve finished typing, and can get a definition with a single click.

Learn to play music

5. Show Me How To Play is the musician’s web app. There’s plenty of free videos available you can use to learn some really great tracks.

Learn another language

6. italki helps you find a language partner, get answers, share files, get language resources and join groups. If you’re learning a language but don’t know anyone to practice with, this web app could be the answer to your woes.

Learn how to make stuff

7. Instructables is an online community of enterprising DIY fanatics who share and use tutorials on doing just about everything under the sun: from building a gingerbread house to constructing a garage from the ground up.

Learn where the cool events are happening

8. Flavorpill is a very hip events aggregator for key American cities.

Learn to live sustainably

9. Make Me Sustainable is a social community for people trying to live in a more sustainable way. The Carbon and Energy Portfolio Manager is a neat way to keep tabs on your impact.

10. Carbonrally promises to help you reduce global warming (in a small way) by undertaking quick and easy challenges.

Learn to manage your finances

11. Mint is an award-winning secure web app to help you manage your finances. It helps you track debt, view multiple accounts simultaneously and keep track of your income and your expenses. The slick interface also includes a number of visualization options.

Learn to be more productive

12. Remember the Milk helps you create simple to-do lists for everyday tasks.

Learn where to go

13. Wikitravel is a user-generated worldwide travel guide currently serving over 17,000 locations. If you don’t want to spend money on a glossy travel guide, Wikitravel should do the trick.

Learn where your site’s visitors are clicking

14. Crazy Egg generates a heat map of your site to help visualize where your visitors are clicking and navigating. Measure the performance of ads and which elements of your navigation aren’t working as they should be.

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