Courses
Whether you’re aiming to learn some new marketable skills or just want to explore a topic for fun, online learning platforms are a great and easily accessible resource for learning on your own schedule. As an alternative to online colleges, these platforms tend to be a little more flexible and may even offer more specific or unusual classes you wouldn’t find at a traditional college, but it’s important that prospective students compare their options to find what’s best for them. Here are our recommendations for the best online learning platforms, so that you can sign up today.
Coursera
Coursera courses last approximately four to twelve weeks, with one to two hours of video lectures a week. These courses provide quizzes, weekly exercises, peer-graded and reviewed assignments, an optional Honors assignment, and sometimes a final project or exam to complete the course. Courses are also provided on-demand, in which case users can take their time in completing the course with all of the material available at once. As of May 2015, Coursera offered 104 on-demand courses and also provides guided projects which are short 2-3 hour projects that can be done at home. According to 'Coursera Impact Report 2020', the top five most popular courses that people learn from Coursera were contact tracing, digital marketing, project management, Python programming, and social psychology.
Link: Coursera
Category : Programming,
Udemy
Khan Academy
Khan Academy provides a free personalized learning experience, that is built on the videos, hosted on YouTube. The website is meant to be used as a supplement to its videos because it includes other features such as progress tracking, practice exercises, and teaching tools. The material can also be accessed through mobile applications. The videos display a recording of drawings on an electronic blackboard, which is similar to the style of a teacher giving a lecture. The narrator describes each drawing and how they relate to the material being taught. Furthermore, throughout the lessons, users can earn badges and energy points, which can be displayed on their profiles. Non-profit groups have distributed offline versions of the videos to rural areas in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Videos range from all subjects covered in school and for all grades from kindergarten up through the high school. The Khan Academy website also hosts content from educational YouTube channels and organizations such as Crash Course and the Museum of Modern Art. It also provides online courses for preparing for standardized tests, including the SAT, AP Chemistry, Praxis Core, and MCAT, and released LSAT preparation lessons in 2018. They also have a collaboration with independent chemists, which are mentioned in there, "Meet the chemistry professional". Khan Academy has also supported Code.org’s Hour of Code, providing coding lessons on its website.
Udacity
Udacity is a global, online, lifelong learning platform connecting education to jobs. Udacity works with industry leaders to create project-based online learning programs. These unique collaborations ensure that students learn the technical skills that employers value most. Udacity works with industry experts to create a project and skills-based online learning program called Nanodegree programs. Udacity Nanodegree programs provide credentials earned through a series of online courses and projects in an array of subjects from self-driving cars and AI to data science and digital marketing. Udacity collaborates with expert instructors and more than 200 global industry partners including AT&T, Google, Facebook, Mercedes-Benz, and NVIDIA to close talent gaps.
EdX
EdX offers professional degree certificates, plus “micro” degree programs at the bachelor’s and master’s levels, largely as a tool for professional development. Through a partnership with Arizona State University, they also offer a “Global Freshman Academy” to earn transferrable undergrad credits for select lessons. Classes are similar to “real” online courses: Lectures, reading material, assignments, discussions, and quizzes are just some of the elements you may encounter. The big selling point for EdX is that the majority of their courses are free—but there’s a catch. If you’re just taking the class for your own learning experience, the free version will probably work, but if you want to have formal verification for professional reasons, the “verified certificate” option costs about $49 per class. Each course does have an official “start date,” cycling over and over again, but once the session begins, students can proceed at their own pace.