What interesting free and low cost things can do you online?

[ConfusedandContrary]

I'm trying to create a list for a friend who is confined to bed for the foreseeable future. She loves to learn so any particular YouTube channels or sites where you can do anything interesting would be wonderful. I've directed her towards the many radio plays and audiobooks on YouTube which she's enjoying but there must be many other things to do online that I haven't considered.

Any ideas would be welcome. TIA

Friend has a spinal cord injury if it's relevant. She has some use of her hands and can manage an IPad for some time but a laptop would be beyond her

Isn't there something like all courses from Harvard (or another similarly renowned American university) are available for free online?

Or Ted Talks?

There may be some things on zooniverse that she could manage.

Coursera offer free online courses in a range of subjects. Fairly basic but enjoyable (though perhaps too much typing?)

Duolingo is a free app for learning languages. You can set it to do as little as ten minutes a day

Future Learn have free online courses.

Thank you all so much. These are wonderful.

Is she a member of her local library? Mine have an app (not just for our county) where you can borrow books and audiobooks for free, plus take part in some online courses.

There are some free courses here too:
www.york.ac.uk/study/moocs/

All educational, or some thing for entertainment?

This is my favourite YouTube channel at the moment, Summer Kitchen, a Chinese home and cooking vlogging. www.youtube.com/channel/UCM7tA0T1S7QG0w4ahpu26kw/videos

Entertainment is great too. Anything at all really.

She does have visitors but often she's in pain and feeling low and just wants space, so is keen to have some things to do to keep her occupied.

Thank you, Ruby and Brenda. Those are great too, and she is a member of her library so we can look into that. I'm sure I've seen our library advertise similar.

Definitely audio books/ebooks from the library; what does she like doing?

When I couldn't go out much I got addicted (ahem) to the free Escape Room Games you can download for your Smartphone - there are some available for PC as well. Be warned though. They're addictive....

I also watched lots of Netflix and old dramas on Youtube (like the original Poldark), discovered lots of new bands, and had a look on Google World View (or whatever it's called now) to go on fantasy holidays...family history was a good distraction too, a lot of the sites offer the first 30 days free until you decide if you'd like to sign up.

Things to learn - languages are always good; I see people have already mentioned coursera, there's also futurelearn and there are masses on a site called alison. Or if she likes games there are lots at www.games.co.uk (lots of adverts but several games for free). I may or may not have been addicted to Bubble Witch on my Kindle in the past as well. Ahem.

Very best wishes to your friend, anyway.

Future learn has free online courses..e.g. Forensics, creative writing etc

Meditations etc - think they’re on YouTube

Open Culture have loads of interesting stuff to read about, and some courses.
www.openculture.com/

Isn't there an Australian uni who do online courses? It's on the tip of my tongue

Could she join one of those survey websites like swagbucks - earn a bit of money and be occupied?

Does she like computer games. There several free to play games she can download. Neverwinter springs to mind.

What about finding some good games? If you browse the app store there's soooo many to pick from.

Bit lowbrow but I love the geography quizzes on sporcle. Some you have to type names of countries/cities but there are tons that are just tapping the screen.

If she’s into science/maths then the Khan academy. Those videos got me through my degree.

Geoguessr game;
geoguessr.com

Archaeologist Wants Your Help To Find Ancient Sites;
www.globalxplorer.org/about/#bio

Also if she’s artistic I recommend looking at thisiscolossal

Jigzone.

Sudoku.

Suguru.

Thank you all so much for the wonderful ideas. I really appreciate them, and there's nothing wrong with Sporcle. I love that site. How could I forget it? My Friend isn't at all particular about entertainment so anything is welcome.

She loves reading especially non-fiction, arts and crafts, she regularly attended some craft groups, she was a member of a regular pub quiz team. She loves to bake, play piano and loves wildlife and is obsessed with anything tea related. She also loves history and had just taken up cycling before her accident but unfortunately she can no longer do most of those things, though I hope in future that she'll be able to return to some of her interests.

If she is feeling philanthropic try www.missingmaps.org/ . Have been involved through work, basically helping identify roads and houses and businesses in remote towns countries or third world areas. Humanitarian organisations then use the maps when dealing with disaster relief I.e knowing that a road or track exists and what houses may be homes as opposed to places of work. All crowdsourced and instructions are on the site. Can spend as much or as little time as you like doing it