As of June 2012, 78.9% of all people in North America had access to internet. I think it’s fair to say that nowadays everybody in the western world, and many other parts of the world, can afford an internet connection – no matter if it’s mobile internet or a broadband connection from your local provider.
Having an internet connection breaks a lot barriers, one of which is education. Every person with internet access is able to search the web and start learning stuff. Doesn’t matter if it’s high-school material, university courses or, what I did, online marketing.
Most of what I knew about online marketing (before landing my first industry job and starting trendblog.net) I have taught myself online. I have read a countless amount of blog articles, books, watched many related YouTube videos and took e-learning courses.
In this blog post, I want to share with you some of the best and most popular e-learning websites. They all successfully helped me to learn basically everything I wanted to learn in the past and, hopefully, will help me in the future as well.
Table of Contents
Why Take Online Courses?
Every day more an more people start enrolling into countless e-learning programmes – ranging from biology and physics to entrepreneurship and marketing. A study has shown that people who took all or part of their courses online performed better compared to the ones who took face-to-face courses.
So why would you attend online courses? Here are a few reasons why you should:
- Study at your own pace and repeat courses whenever you want
- Amazing amount of free courses
- Flexible schedule – learn when you want
- You can attend courses from anywhere in the world given the fact that you have internet access
- Certificate given at the end of each course – this may be something for your CV
Best eLearning Platforms
Udemy
Udemy is an e-learning platform, which offers a huge variety of free and premium courses ranging from Technology and Business to Music and Craftsmanship.
Recommended courses:
- Infographics For Content Promotion (free)
- Coding for Entrepreneurs ($49)
- Beginner’s or Advanced Excel Training ($99)
Codecademy
As digital marketers we have to stay up to date with the latest technologies and be able to understand how they work. You should at least know the basics of HTML and CSS. If you want to make yourself familiar with coding, check out Codecademy’s free courses.
Recommended courses:
- JavaScript
- Web Fundamentals
- PHP
- APIs (especially useful)
Coursera
More than 3.5 million students have already signed up for the 370 free courses from 69 different partners, including Ivy League universities like Brown, Columbia and Princeton.
The main difference between Coursera and other online education platforms is that all the courses take place within a certain time frame, usually a few weeks long. This means that you would have to adjust to the schedule, without having the full ability to learn at your own pace.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is probably the best known resource for online courses. It also helped me to pass quite a few finance-related courses in university.
Besides featuring over 4.100 different educational videos, students are able to see detailed study-performance statistics. All courses are being offered for free – no exceptions.
The website offers courses from 5 different categories:
- Math
- Science & Economics
- Computer Science
- Humanities
- Test Preparation (i.e. SAT Math, GMAT, CAHSEE)
Conclusion
Doesn’t matter what you want to learn, there is something out there for you. There is a huge variety of free online courses, and the paid ones are very often quite affordable, compared to “offline” courses. Whether you want to catch up on some courses you missed in high-school or want to develop your professional skills – you can do it.
What kind of experience did/do you have with online education? Do you think it will replace face-to-face teaching? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
Muy buena entrada! Gracias por la selección.
Gracias, te lo agradezco! 🙂
Hello Dani!
if you wish you can add http://www.brainyoctopus.com to the list.
It’s a free and new service that makes easier share and find upcoming webinars 🙂
Be sure to consider http://www.scormlms.com for simple, effective e-learning!
Online education has many advantages for the students, with proper time management students can easily plan your online learning session to fit in to their busy schedule, student can complete a degree online in shorter period of time, learning has many advantages, Learning has many advantages, learning enables us to quickly create and communicate new polices, ideas and concepts, through e learning we can save time and money.