Besides actual course lectures from public and private universities, one finds educational sites related to public lectures, cultural events, and conferences that are available to educators and intellectuals worldwide. Below is a list of some of the best of the general video collections sites.
This site includes in-depth interviews and discussions with intellectuals (scientists, academics, entrepreneurs, and cultural figures) offering what the site describes as “open-minded, free ranging, intellectually playful” discourse. Unlike most sites that provide only brief clips or teasers, this site has in-depth discussions that are much longer videos.
FORA.tv claims to offer the web’s largest collection of conference and event videos. Offered at the site are free, paid-membership (at fifty dollars a year), and fee-based viewing of live events, lectures, and debates. Included in the services are premium fee-based videos on an iPad application called the Conference Channel. Videos are classified under general subject areas: business, environment, politics, psychology, science, social sciences, technology, culture, etc. Premium videos are labeled as such so viewers can discern what is free and what is not. In addition, the company offers services to help sponsors broadcast their events either live or on FORA.tv.
Nobel Prize
(YouTube One Channel)
Sponsored by the official website of the Nobel Prize Foundation, the YouTube Nobel video channel Nobelprize.org offers over 400 videos. It presents videos about the achievements of Nobel laureates. The site highlights Nobel winner research, along with clips about Nobel Prize events and documentaries about Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. For example, the thirty-minute video The Mystery of Memory highlights the AstraZeneca Nobel Medicine Initiative related to memory research and how today’s neuroscientists are helping to find new treatments for memory disorders.
Smithsonian Videos
(YouTube One Channel)
Experts in art, design, history, culture, and science and technology offer a variety of topics, starting with the contents of the Smithsonian museums. Along with about 450 videos classified by general broad subject matter, one finds twenty-eight browsable “playlists” about dance, music, race, American Indians, climate change, and more.