Want to start a new career or learn a new skill? Udemy is the online learning academy for you! Udemy offers over 4,000 on-demand, online courses on leadership, management, coding, design, marketing, IT operations, data science, project management, human resources, sales, accounting, and productivity. And it’s all free with your MCPL library card!

Udemy courses are mostly business focused. There are courses on the usual productivity tools, like Microsoft Word and Excel, as well as introductory tech classes on subjects like HTML and WordPress.

Udemy also covers the softer, more social side of business with courses on public speaking, running productive meetings, and managing teams. I just started a course on public speaking to help me prepare for a presentation on podcasting that I’m giving at a library conference.

One can also find very specialized courses like CompTIA A+ and PLC Programming from Scratch. There’s an entire section, with a half dozen sub categories, focused on just data science. Some of these are so specialized I don’t even understand the course titles!

There’s also a personal development section in Udemy that includes language courses, life skills from painting to personal finance, and stress management courses related to mindfulness, meditation, and other techniques.

The videos offered by Udemy are on-demand, so you can start them whenever it’s convenient. Each course is broken up into smaller modules, making it easy to dip into a course for 30 minutes and pick it up later where you left off. Courses sometimes include supplementary material, such as practice tests or lists of questions to help you reflect on what you learned. Don’t worry though, there’s no final grade, just a certificate of completion.

Udemy is free with your MCPL library card. However, you’ll also need to create a free Google or Microsoft account to login. Udemy uses your name  to populate certificates of completion and your email address to reach you if you need assistance.​ Udemy stores name and email address only to provide you with service and does not share or sell this data.

So, if you’re looking to start a new career, boost your skills, or enhance your personal development, take a look at Udemy and make your goals a reality.

How many of you are guilty of ignoring nonfiction picture books and focusing more on the fun, imaginative, fiction books out there? I know I’m guilty of this all the time. That’s why I was really excited to learn about MCPL’s resource called BookFlix.  

Bookflix is an online early literacy resource that pairs animated versions of popular picture books with related nonfiction ebooks. Someone has basically done all the work for me and found a nonfiction companion to a whole bunch of my favorite picture books. What more could I ask for?  

We love Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. at my house, so why not watch the story unfold and then have fun with alphabet riddles afterward? Oh, and don’t let the fun stop there. The pairing comes with picture puzzles, fact or fiction questions and sequence images to help build reading comprehension. You can even “dive deeper” and explore similar concepts on the web or learn more about the authors and illustrators of the books.  

Another pairing we enjoyed was I’m Brave! by Kate & Jim McMullan and How Things Works: Firetrucks by Joanne Mattern. My daughter loved watching the picture book video, with all its noises, and then seeing real firetrucks in the nonfiction companion. It was a great way to bring the story to life.  

If you’re from a bilingual household, you’ll love BookFlix even more because there are a ton of book pairings for Spanish speaking families.  

I found BookFlix super easy to use and something that would appeal to a preschool, kindergarten, or even a younger elementary age group. All you need to get started is a library card! So check out BookFlix today!  

So we’re a few weeks into this digital world of homeschooling, have you gotten the hang of it yet? Don’t worry, I haven’t either. Trying to balance fun and education can be really hard, especially if you aren’t sure you have all the resources you need. Fortunately, we live in a world where digital learning isn’t just possible, but happening as we speak.  

Many of you may be familiar with TumbleBooks, an animated digital book library, but have you heard of TumbleMath?  

is a digital collection of math picture books, with animations, narration, quizzes, and more. It covers a variety of topics including counting, word problems, geometry, probability, and even time and temperature.  

One of the things I love about this collection is that I can read the books to my daughter or I can set her up and go do the dishes while the narrator reads the story to her. The narrator actually sounds human and the images are animated, which helps to keep her attention from wandering. I like to put out knickknacks for my daughter to count while the story runs, whether she actually counts them or not.  

Each book comes with a mini lesson plan, outlining the learning objectives, and a number of animated/narrated quizzes you can do together to help reinforce what has been learned. We’re not quite ready for quizzes in my house, but it’s nice to know they are there.  

Before the libraries closed, there was a mad dash for math books and learning resources as caregivers were preparing to homeschool their children for the first time. TumbleMath may just be the math solution you are looking for.  

Social distancing doesn’t have to be a drag! Use this valuable time to learn a new skill with your library card! Don’t have a MCPL library card? No problem! Apply for our free digital library card and begin to use our online resources today.

One of our free resources, Lynda.com, is an online learning site that includes a diverse set of creative, personal, and professional classes. The tutorials are easy to use and many of them start at a beginner’s level. We’d like to spotlight a couple of these exceptional courses. 

Have you ever wanted to learn how to play an instrument but could never find the time? Beginning Accoustic Guitar Music Lessons features beginner videos on acoustic guitar basics. Tutorials begin with how to hold the guitar, strum, and read music. Videos are separated into sections so users can easily skip over or go back to different lessons. If the acoustic guitar is not for you, Lynda.com also provides beginner lessons for playing the drums, piano, and more! 

Lynda.com also provides tutorials to increase your professional knowledge and skills set. Follow the learning path Improve Your Microsoft Excel Skills and take lessons on advanced formatting techniques, in-depth charts, formulas, and functions. Whether you want to “wow” your current employer or add another competency to your resume, Lynda.com has all you need! 

Looking for more? Be sure to check out Udemy for personal development skills and Creativebug to spark your creative side. All of these priceless resources are free with your MCPL library card!