Why Online Learning is Important?

Freedom of learning anything makes it more beneficial than traditional learning.

Online Learning/eLearning is an education that takes place over the internet. Students access the learning material(notes, videos, books, etc) via an online platform having the content created by teachers/educators.

Now let’s jump right into why online learning is so important nowadays.

1. Wast amount of courses and content

When we talk about the number of online courses provided by top Universities and top companies there are hundreds and thousands of courses.

If we take an example of Udemy then they have almost 1,00,000+ courses. When we include Coursera, Udacity, edx, LinkedIn Learning that’s a lot of courses.

2. Courses provided by experts

Courses provided on Udacity are mostly provided by top universities (Stanford, Yale, University of Michigan, etc.) and companies (Google, IBM Amazon, etc.) in the world.

The main thing to notice here is the quality of content. Most of the courses on these platforms are taught by experts in their fields.

For example, 3900+ courses on Coursera have created world-class universities with an extreme focus on professional and business development.

3. Easily accessible

The most important thing for online courses is like you we do not have to be present there physically.

Whether you are going home by bus or taking an Uber you can just open the app or website and just start listening or reading. You can start your learning in the morning or at midnight. This is the true freedom of learning.

As research suggests, most of the people in the world do not have the same learning style. You can find out the type of content (notes, audio, video) that works well for you and get the most out of your time and efforts.

4. Online communities to provide a classroom environment

We can agree that we cannot match the classroom environment that we have when we are present physically in the classroom but some of the platforms are trying very hard to achieve engagement near similar to that environment.

Let’s take an example of Coursera, for most of the courses they provide a community where you can ask questions, you can answer questions. For some courses, they have peer to peer assignment grading facility also.

We can also contact the course instructor, technical assistance(s), and your colleagues directly. They can answer the queries when they get time. Indeed, that’s not a real-time conversation.

5. The hands-on or real-life learning

Yes, this is the real differentiator between academic courses and online courses.

Most of the academic courses have 80–90% theory in classrooms, assignments, and exams.

Online courses are created in such a way that they provide practical or hands-on assignments that can help us deliver in real-world situations. It bridges the gap between theory and practical.

6. Learn only what you need

Our academic calendar has courses that we aren’t interested in or don’t need.

Online learning provides has the freedom to choose the courses we want to enroll in to enhance our skills or learn something new.

This can help you experiment with the topics you want to explore in a short time.

7. No time constraint to learn

Typically for any online course, we don’t have strict deadlines to complete the course.

Coursera provides a friendly timeline to complete the courses. Udemy facilitates fully self-paced learning.

You can complete the course in one week or one month or 6 months that’s up to you.

Except for some of the deadline-oriented courses, you can create your schedule based on the free time you have.

8. Learn most of the things for free

This is the most important part. If you want to learn something related to science then we have to go to a school or college where they provide the science courses and pay for that.

However, we want to learn something then online courses provide us the almost free resources to learn.

For example, most of the Coursera courses are free to audit means you can access the learning material for free.

If you want to take the certification then only you have to pay and that’s also true for Udacity.

9. Paid certifications

We can take the courses, learn the material, but how to showcase that for your next job — Certifications.

Certification provides a validation that you have a specific level of expertise in a particular field. It’s provided based on some form of paid test or weighted assignments.

For example, Coursera evaluates the skills by in-course quizzes and assignments.

One question may arise, are they worth it? Well, It’s yes and no. It depends. We’ll cover that in an upcoming post, as it’s a complex question to answer in one line.

Conclusion

In today’s world, we have a vast amount of knowledge, courses, and content.

Online learning is a great fit if you want to explore, learn, and experiment with various skills.

Whether you want to enhance your skills or want to earn a certification, online courses are there for you.

Action Item: Research the platforms, find the courses, and start building your skillset.