Looking for some great online training content for IT related topics? Check out the CERT Virtual Training Environment. There is a ton of free content. Those of you in the DoD environment can take advantage of the sponsored account agreement with DISA and get access to the full library of online training.
They have topics for all sorts of computer security and forensics tasks. Here are just a few!
Did you know that Microsoft have some free online training courses for Office 2003 and 2007? The Office Training Homepage helpfully shows you popular and new courses – worth checking out and referring your end users to. If you have Software Assurance then there are additional courses available too under the Microsoft e-learning scheme. To access these courses you will need to request access from the person who administers your Microsoft Licensing. In my experience, getting the e-learning access for my users took about 4 weeks or repeated emails and phone calls with Microsoft before someone could fix the system to allow my users in, but the content was worth it.
I heard about Scratch on Phil Windley’s Technometria as released through IT Conversations.
Scratch is an awesome visual programming environment made by folks at MIT. Drag and drop coding with color and shapes to each object. It is perfect for teaching programming to kids. It even has a social component in that you can click a button to submit your creation back up to the Scratch site to share with everyone. At the time I write this over 49,000 projects have been shared on the Scratch site. It is free for both Windows and Mac OSX.
Here is a snapshot from the Scratch Introduction PDF showing how a small program is built.
The quote from the Scratch About Page:
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.
Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.
Kevin Devin located a site that has links to 4 of the Common Craft “In Plain English” videos. The 4 included on this page are RSS Feeds, Wikis, Social Bookmarking, and Social Networks. These are great ways to introduce the newbies in your life to these technologies, without all the techno mumbo-jumbo. 
