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How to Use Google to Get Free University Lectures
When I was still attending college, many times my science teachers were unable to clearly explain certain concepts. The book usually wasn’t much better either. One thing that saved my GPA was the ability to view the lectures of other Professors from other universities around the country.
I was able to do this for free without paying a dime of tuition to any other university.
How to Get Free Lectures
Many professors now put their PowerPoint lectures online for their students to view. An advantage of this is that if the PowerPoint Lectures are available online, Google will index them, allowing internet users to find them when they perform Google searches.
All you have to do is put the following into a Google search box:
filetype:ppt site:edu [topic of lecture you want]
How It Works
The filetype:ppt tells Google to search for only PowerPoint files — nothing else.
The site:edu tells Google to only search sites that end in .edu, which is reserved for institutions of higher education.
Then when you type your keywords in, Google only returns PowerPoint files from United States universities.
Here are a few examples as to what you can find for free online, all written by highly-educated university faculty:
filetype:ppt site:edu DNA Replication returns the following results:
filetype:ppt site:edu Federal Reserve Monetary Policy returns the following results:
filetype:ppt site:edu Minoan Civilization returns the following results:
A Vast Database of Knowledge
As you can see, a PowerPoint has been made to teach almost every imaginable subject. Even the Minoan Civilization has 36 PowerPoints that discuss it.
Many times, a PowerPoint is also much easier to read than an encyclopedic article. Also, since these were written by professional educators, you are more likely to understand what they are saying. If not, you can always try a different PowerPoint, and you’ll get the subject from the point of view of another teacher.
What if You Don’t Have PowerPoint?
If you don’t have PowerPoint installed on your computer and you don’t want to shell out the couple hundred dollars to get it, there are still four ways to view the PowerPoint files for free:
- The most compatible way is to download the Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer.
- Another method is to get the freely available and open productivity suite, OpenOffice.org, which comes with built-in support for Microsoft PowerPoint files.
- You can click the View as HTML link on the second line of the search result summary. This is the quickest method, but many special effects will not show up.
- If you have a Google account, you can use Google Docs to open up the PowerPoint file and view/edit it.
If you have any questions on this Google tip, just put it in the comments below and I will answer it. Thanks for reading!
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