I've always been a learner so using my tablets for educational purposes is natural to me. I first started taking online courses many years ago when I wanted to learn more about programming languages. In addition to online courses, tablets can be used for gaining information from books, using educational apps, and following news stories.
Online Courses
YouTube
Educational Apps
Books
News
If you're no longer a student in formal education courses, you can still enhance your knowledge with online courses. There are options for everything from single videos to university level options. Two of the most popular options for online learning are Cousera and Udemy. Most learning sites also have apps for tablets.
One source for free courses from universities is edX, with apps for iPads and Android tablets. There are also many universities that offer free courses either through their own websites or through other service providers like edX.
If you want to extend your learning for free, check out your local public library's online resources. My library offers Microsoft's LinkedIn Learning service for anyone who has a library card, which can easily be applied for online.
YouTube can be a good learning resource. It has videos that can help you find out how to use a particular gadget or device, how to fix something in your home, or how to do something on your tablet. There are many news related videos or other informational videos. YouTube is an excellent resource for instructional videos, so the next time you want to learn how to do something, open the app or website and you'll most likely find what you want.
Apps can be a great way to increase your learning on a daily basis. There are apps available on many educational topics, including languages, music and art, and science. I enjoy using apps that help me improve my programming skills. The iPad and Google Play stores have a huge selection of educational apps for adults as well as for children. The Amazon app store specializes mainly in educational apps for children.
I've put books under education because I almost always read to learn something new. I enjoy nonfiction books, especially history books, but I also consider them as learning tools. I love reading and learning about periods in history that are new areas of study for me.
There are three major book apps - Amazon's Kindle app which is available for all types of tablets, Google Play Books which is available for iPads and Android tablets, and Apple's Books app for iPads. The Kindle app is by far the most advanced of the apps and the Kindle store has the largest selection of books.
There are many online sources for news. You can use social media sites, news media apps, news aggregate apps, and search engines for news information. If you don't own a TV or radio, you can still get all of the latest news from online sources.
Although X (formerly Twitter) is a social media site, it is a good way to get news if you know which accounts to follow. Select people and organizations you trust to provide reliable information on news topics of interest to you. This can include experts in various fields, such as sports, technology, and politics.
Most news outlets have websites and/or apps but they usually also have subscription costs. If you don't want to pay for news, you can use a news aggregate app instead of a single news app or website. This kind of app lets you get news stories from various sources and different points of view. The iPad and Android app stores have several good news aggregate apps, like Google News. If you use an Amazon tablet, you can find Google News with your tablet's web browser.
I like using a news reader app for iPads called Feedly. Feedly uses news feeds that let you read news highlights that link to actual web page articles. You can sometimes find links to news feeds on websites - on this blog, it's the small blue icon in the sidebar. If you click on the icon, you will probably get a message that you need an RSS reader to open the link.
Another good source for news can be podcasts. There are many podcasts that are focused on news stories, including ones from major news outlets. Apple has its own iPad app for podcasts but there are plenty of third-party apps available on all of the app stores. Amazon Music also includes podcasts and there is an app for it obviously on Fire tablets but also in the iPad and Google Play stores.
