Education is a term that needs no introduction, no explanation or no secondary thought. Education has been enabling individuals to impart themselves with skills and earn their bread. That’s why, today, I am going to list top 8 websites for online education.
Online Education has really taken off the charts from the release of Massive Open Online Courses or more clearly websites that enable you to learn anything that can be think of. Keeping the fact that learning can be done by anyone, anytime in their life — there are too many courses online that speaks the volume of opportunities that can be used by learners to bring their skills to the next level.
You may also like
- 7 Best PHP IDE for Developers and Programmers
- 11 Top Programming languages, You Should Know in 2015
- 5 Top Text Editors for Programmers
- 7 Mistakes New Freelancer Writers Make and How to Avoid Them
These 8 Websites for online education will keep you busy for most of the time, and by any chance you able to finish all the courses offered by these websites(which is not going to happen in the next lifetime), there are more online websites to learn. But, we will keep the discussion to only top 8 websites for online education.
Anyone, who is familiar with the current state of education, must also understand that lifelong learning is important to sustain both intellectual and skill growth. Keeping all the other facts, today’s most important skills include coding, network administrators, marketing, leaders and more.
Let’s start the list of Top 8 Websites for online education.
1. Coursera
Main Focus: All types of courses
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free/Paid
Blog: Coursera Blog
Coursera is the leading free course provider on the internet. It all started way back in 2012 and the platform has grown exponentially from there. The model of working on this platform works with partnering the universities and releasing content curated by their staff.
Right now, Coursera has 10 different specializations and the roadmap for the future looks bright as they will offer more and more specialization in the future.
Specialization is a set of courses that needs to be taken in an order to get maximum benefits. Each Specialization offers one capstone project to completement the learning. Also, the certificates earned after doing the projects holds significance in the eyes of the employer. Coursera also offers certificates for free courses, but the importance of these free certifications are highly questioned.
Coursera is a platform, where you can grab hold of any subject and start your learning. I love Coursera, and I want my blog reader to get started with the platform as soon as possible.
But, choosing the right course can be a daunting task. Do not worry, as the next article in the series of learning will contain useful tips and tricks to choose the right course for your learning.
2. Udacity
Main Focus: Computer Science/Technology
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free/Paid
Blog: Udacity Blog
Udacity is the next generation online platform that is both unique and awesome! The reason why, I am biased towards Udacity is that I started my online learning journey with Udacity.
Udacity is basically a Computer Science learning platform that is adamant to turn your from X profession to a computer scientist.
The courses are both interactive and internally build using the Udacity team, which are both extremely high quality and highly interactive. Udacity is great, but there is a twist here, they do not provide free certificates. But, according to the CEO of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun, there is no need for certificates as there is no value of free certificates.
The need for certificates is topic for another day.
What makes Udacity Awesome?
Udacity is unique from online course providers for the sole reason of custom course material which passes their quality standards. They focus on interactivity and put tons of exercise within the lesson to maximize learning.
3. Edx
Main Focus: All type of Courses
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free/Paid/Subscription
Blog: Edx Blog
Edx is similar to Coursera and further improves the notion of Massive Open Online Course. With tons of courses at disposal, you can choose to begin your online journey. Edx is an initiative by Anant Agarwal to disrupt online learning and enhance class learning with the online learning videos.
Edx platform offers courses from mathematics, philosophy, English, education, computer science, and more. A wonderful platform for learning. They also offer online courses.
4. Lynda
Main Focus: All type of Courses
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free/Paid/Subscription
Blog: Lynda Articles
Lynda is one of the leading online course providers that has tons of courses to choose from. One thing that makes Lynda apart from different course providers is its user-friendly user interface.
You can easily find anything that you can think of — ranging from the Design, Development, 3D-Animation, Business, Education and more.
Another thing that sets Lynda apart is their subscription-based library access, which clearly gives you the edge. Once you get subscribed to their library, you can access anything you like, making you one of those learning bunnies that love different subjects.
The rate of subscription is at $25 per month, which gives you access to 80000 videos — impressive indeed.
5. Udemy
Main Focus: Technology and Business
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free/Paid
Blog: Udemy Blog
Udemy is yet another popular online course provider that offers tons of technical courses at disposal. Udemy also offers business courses, but the technology courses make it unique.
The downside of Udemy is the cost associated with it. The range of the courses can range from $10 to $500, depending on the course difficulty and demand. But, if you are looking for the top courses, then you might need to shell out more than $100 for each course.
The platform also offers free courses, but most of the free courses do not add value and might only be useful for newbies. Other than free courses, each course comes with user feedback so that you can take your time and relax reading through the reviews and finally decide on which course you want to pursue.
6. Khan Academy
Main Focus: Academic Subjects – Math, Science, Economics, Humanities, Computer Science
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free
Blog: Khan Academy Blog
If you are online learner, chances are that you have already known about Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a non-profit platform that offers video for academic subjects such as economics, humanities, science, maths and lately started to share computer programming courses. The reason why, I prefer Khan Academy is for the sole reason of it’s being free. Free videos will teach you the building blocks of online learning that requires different kind of motivation, routine and rigor to complete.
Starting with Khan Academy can put you in a good place for the costly professional courses from other platforms.
7. CodeAcademy
Main Focus: Computer Science Programming Languages
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free
Blog: Khan Academy Blog
CodeAcademy is the home of computer science course that is highly funded lately and provides a platform for both the beginners and the advanced. The courses are more beginner friendly, and the veterans might not love the platform.
Other than free courses, the whole platform uses gamification to engage the users and motivate them with different badges. Currently, the platform offers course in three major programming languages, PHP, Ruby, and Python — with more to come soon.
All the courses are free of cost and provide project-based learning.
8. Iversity
Main Focus: All Types
Course Difficulty Level: All ranges.
Cost: Free/Paid
Blog: Iversity Blog
Iversity is one of the leading Massive Open Online Course platforms that offers all type of courses including technology, business, and education. It works similar to Coursera and works in collaboration with their local university, providing a platform to university to reach wider audience.
Wrap Up
I am a big fan of online learning and from the past 3 years, I have done tons of online courses until now(18 to be exact). The first few courses were tough for me and required constant failures to complete.
Udacity’s Intro to Computer Science was my first course and I took 6 months to complete it. I am glad that I went through the course that prepared me to take the future courses.
All the platforms discussed here are more than enough to get started and learn useful thing, which can be easily applied in real life.
So, why the wait? start learning. Also, share you favorite online platform and any other platform that should be in the list!
