I beleive there is a future for free education. Sooner or later, people don’t need to go to university to spend time learning skills and knowledge they needed to. Online learning and education can replace it. Tution fees are expensive and it’s quite an investment for students and their parents.
There are several initiatives that is working on learning online to a whole new level. In this blog,I like to list down these sites and talk about it by my opinions.
Khan Academy
It might be the most popular platform for free online learning.
Pros:The website is nice and interactive. It includes some features like badges for students and teachers. There is no time constraints and it’s like free-style learning without any pressure.
Cons:The courses have limited number and most of the course levels are intermediate level. Good for high school and undergraduate students if they are willing to learn on their own.
Coursea
Unlike Khan academy,coursea is full with adanced course. Most of the courses are not free but some courses are. The courses are coached by third party institution.
Pros: Good for people looking to learn advanced topic or subject. Right now,I am working on a subject called “Information Security and Risk Management Context”.
Cons: There are no specific format for the courses and it can be frustrating for new students.The courses are not opened all the time and you have to wait for the course you like to join.
Udemy
Udemy is similar to Coursea. The quality of the course seems to be better than Coursea and the price of some courses are high.
Pros: Some courses are quite expensive but still offers free courses. Nice UI and easy to follow lesson plan.
Cons:all the courses are in english language compared with Coursea which offers various languages.
Udacity
This is the learning platform specific for computer science field. It’s worth checking out for CS guys.
Pros: Since it focus on one subject, the quality of the courses are quite good for computer sciene topics.
Cons: I can’t find any thing for this one.
Gibbon
This one is new fish in town. Still in development and they are still working on more features.It’s not like traditional learning. People curated articles based on their knowledge and experience. If you are interested,you can follow these ‘playlists’ to learn them.
Pros:Comfortable and easy to follow. You can make a learning commitment for day/week. Good for life-long learners who are willing to improve their knowledge on the corresponding area.
Cons: The quality of content is depend on people and it’s not for advanced learning.