It’s not that I want to be in school in the summer – I just want to pick up a few new skills or hobbies. What better way to accomplish both than to take an e-learning course! I’ve found a few places where you can take an online course for free. I haven’t tried them all – but they looked good.

Barnes & Nobles University
B&N offers lots of free and fee-based classes on a wide range of topics – from Think Like da Vinci to Beginning Programming. These courses are instructor-led. Classes happen in a finite time span.

HP Learning Center
Focused more on business learning, HP offers a good range of computer and business-related classes for free. Classes include access to instructors and fellow students through a message board.

WannaLearn
WannaLearn is a searchable index of tutorials on a very wide range of topics. These are quick shot lesson on how to do something specific. There is no interaction with an instruction; most of these classes can be completed at one sitting.