When I was studying at uni – my flatmate and I used to play where in the world is Carmen Sandiego

http://www.carmensandiego.com/hmh/site/carmen/home/articles?article=44105&categoryname=home

It seems a bit dated now but it was great for learning certain facts about other countries.

However I am currently doing distance education with a college in London (from Sydney) – this one actually http://www.e-careers.com/ and many universities and college now offer distance learning options.

(and for what its worth although the list price on their website for the course IM doing is over $1000 however thanks to a sale they ran – I only paid $149 so if you find anything anywhere that you like – ask the provider about discounts and vouchers etc)

I know NOTHING about this place (do check and google any place you decide to study with – especially if its a private organisation) – but I thought the comparative religion might interest you ….

http://www.lexicomlearning.com/courses/comparative-religion.html

Whilst many of the traditional Uni courses have been Post graduate courses (meaning you need to have a degree already) this has been changing and many organisations – including Universities now offer short courses

So I have done a number of open learning courses that are unrelated to my degrees

http://www.open.edu.au/

Generally there will be a cost to these so it may be cheaper for you to look at whats offered in NZ –

places like this http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/distance-learning/course/course-types.cfm#short

offer both short courses – on to diploma's and more. I know several people that started with stand alone courses – then moved to a diploma – and to a masters and then one person I know even to a Ph.D.

so they often let you progress to a level that suits your needs. If they dont – they may well be able to refer you to somewhere in NZ that does offer stuff that will suit you.

Also – there are beginning to be Free worldwide Uni courses offered

Stamford (one of the Top Universities in the world) for example – offer a number of free Courses that you can enroll in anywhere in the world

http://see.stanford.edu/ (and whilst I understand that AI or Machine learning may not be your cup of tea – I mention it as there are likely to be other programs in other fields offered by other univesities).

This type of offering is RADICALLY changing the nature of adult education and the feeling is that in the next 10 or so years we will not recognise this type of education. You can probably count on the fact that these offerings WILL increase in time.

Also – if you have a TAFE (Technical) or Community college near by – they may offer a adult education short courses.

Something like http://www.weasydney.com.au/

so with a quick google I found

http://www.tawacomed.co.nz/ and or http://www.cecwellington.ac.nz/

and if they arent close – you could maybe contact them and see if anything was offered close by….

My geographical memory has improved a lot since studying the countries. I pretty much have all the countries of Europe down pat now, although there's usually 1-3 I miss because I need to see a big map of Europe to recognise their shapes (which obviously isn't available when counting ALL 196 countries).

I tried getting all 14 countries of Oceania too. I think my next mission will be countries of South Africa once I have Europe and Oceania 100%.

107/196 – not bad in 4 days me thinks:

http://i47.tinypic.com/34dg0ew.jpg

I think what I've come to realize is that I definitely learn differently. I'm more of a visual learner, and I also learn faster through repetition. I tried remembering the countries of Europe without a map, and needless to say it took me at least twice as long to write them all down in a word document. Definitely a visual learner.

Hey iplantolive, that's an awesome website! Thanks 🙂

Thanks Shadow, I will look into the exact name/label of how I learn sometime today to understand it all. I've found that I remember things through repetition and hands on teaching mainly. When I was a kid, my parents always read to me daily and they used flashcards for me to remember things for homework, and they were both extremely helpful, so I'll definitely look into that.

I think from memory one of my english teachers spoke of 8 different learning types. Like the 'kinetic' type and such. I'm the type that does not learn anything from verbal communication whatsoever. It basically goes in 1 ear, and out the other, and I don't know why, no matter how hard I listen to someone – in fact teachers said I didn't listen despite listening to them for the entire hour – I just learnt nothing and I couldn't understand why.

I suppose it's why I didn't go to university after finishing college because I had a hard time learning from school teachers, let alone the mere thought of trying to understand and remember things that lecturers say at uni – I knew it wasn't for me and that I wouldn't benefit from it :-/ It sometimes frustrates me because the majority of society fits into the first two types of the 8 different learning types, and I guess I'm not part of those first two.

I'll go do some research on it now, thanks again Shadow 😛

Edit: Been procrastinating, still remembering countries, ha ha. I'm working on Africa now. I have Europe 100% now and the countries of Oceania (though I forget 1 or 2 here and there sometimes so I still need to work on this area). From this morning I could only get maybe 13 countries of Africa, now it's between 26 and 28 😛 I think I'll print out all these countries and do some flashcards.

Working on Africa at the moment:

http://i47.tinypic.com/2cxuoms.jpg

Will do some research later tonight