Best Online Learning Platforms
Acquire and enhance your professional skills to achieve your career goal through online learning
In the past, people had the perception that in-person courses have higher quality and are more recognized than online courses. However, this phenomenon is gradually changing. According to Technavio (2020), it forecasts that the market size of worldwide online education will increase by around $247 billion between 2020 and 2024.
The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the key drivers for the recent online education market growth. It forces many schools to conduct their classes virtually. By offering online courses, many schools realize that they can reach out to more students. For those students who receive positive e-learning experiences, they start appreciating the advantage of e-learning. Most importantly, there are more and more successful cases, which one lands a new job or makes a career change after earning a certificate through online learning. Furthermore, this shows that employers are starting to recognize the quality of online courses and the certificates awarded after completing them. For example, this blog article describes a person’s story of receiving an IT job after completing a professional certificate program on the Coursera platform. All of these factors contribute to the online education market growth.
However, there are various types of online learning platforms. If you are interested in learning new knowledge and skills online, you may browse through each category of the online learning platforms below and choose the platform that is most suitable for you.
University-affiliated Courses:
These massive open online course (MOOC) providers partner with many academic institutions, enterprises, and organizations around the world. Besides the single course, they are also offering various program options, including professional certificate programs and online degrees. Some academic institutions may deliver their courses on multiple MOOC platforms. For example, the University of Michigan offers its Django for Everybody program on Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn platforms. Thus, it will always be good to find out whether the courses you are interested in are available on multiple platforms and compare their prices.
· Coursera
· edX
· Kadenze
Marketplace:
Some online learning platforms adopt the marketplace business model, which means individuals can deliver the courses they created through these platforms. These individuals are usually professionals in their field. They want to share their expertise and experience and earn some money at the same time. Since these courses are created by individuals, the quality of the courses is varied. Therefore, it will be better to look at the course reviews and ratings before making a purchase and devoting your time.
· Udemy
Technology and Data Skills:
As we know, technology is driving economic growth and shaping our future. The demand for technology talents is high, but there are many factors that cause the technology talent shortage. With the following online learning platforms that focus on technical knowledge and skills, the talent gap may be reduced. For people who do not have an academic degree but want to break into the technology industry, they can make use of these platforms to learn technology skills and pursue possible job opportunities.
· Udacity
· DataCamp
OpenCourseWare (OCW):
OCW is a university initiative that enables the public to openly access the university’s course materials for free. If you are curious to know about the course materials developed and used by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, and Johns Hopkins University, you may visit the following websites which publish some of their course materials. These materials are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
Other Online Learning Platforms:
· MasterClass — It provides video classes taught by celebrities and industry experts. For example, Bob Iger, the former Disney CEO teaches about strategy and leadership on the MasterClass platform.
· Saylor Academy — Besides offering free courses and certificates of completion, Saylor Academy enables one to earn tuition-free college credits that are recognized and accepted by its partner schools.
· Khan Academy — It provides Mathematics, Science, Humanities, Economics, and English courses for all ages, including pre-college courses and test preparation.
· Alison — With around 2,000 courses, Alison has 18 million learners across 195 countries.
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