Education is one of the most powerful tools you can ever use. Learning something new can often be seen as an investment in yourself, especially if it’s a skill that you can use in your work. Even subjects that aren’t directly applicable to your work can help open your mind to new concepts, give you a new outlook on life, and help you feel more fulfilled.
However, education can often be very expensive. In the United States, for example, a degree at a private non-profit college can cost as much as $48,500 a year, leaving graduates with nearly $200,000 of debt by the end of their four-year course. Even a two-year course at a public college can easily set you back around $25,000.
Then comes the fact that many formal courses can spend more time training you to pass exams than helping you learn an important skill that will help you in life.
With that in mind, many people are now turning to the internet to learn new skills instead. But are these online resources and courses really up to the task and can you actually learn anything online?
Did you know that many educators are now using live streaming services to reach their students? In fact, some are even using StreamOZ to ensure that they have a larger “student” base watching.
Learning From the Best
Some of the most expensive and prestigious educational institutions in the world attract the best students and justify their large fees by offering the “best” teachers with the most experience of research and time in industry.
That’s great for anyone that can attend those universities and training centres, but it excludes many more people. Thankfully, the internet helps to level the playing field by giving everyone access to the best resources.
For example, people that want to start playing card games can go online to find resources and guides that explain how to play poker, produced by experts and experienced professional players. The same is true for anyone looking to learn topics like digital marketing as there are countless guides and courses that explain each topic in-depth using the expertise of seasoned marketers.
Content That’s Suitable for the Layperson
Your local college might run courses in a whole host of different subjects from hair styling to tax planning, meaning there is almost certainly something for everyone. However, these courses tend to be tailored to people that are interested in taking up one of these disciplines as a profession, rather than because they want to do a little bit of work at home.
The internet changes this. The material available online can help you to learn skills that are useful for your own “do-it-yourself” projects, whether that be painting your bathroom or changing the oil in your car.
This means many traditional barriers to learning these topics have been broken. Internet learning can also help people to save themselves a lot of money on costly fees since they can learn to do things they’d otherwise pay for.
While, of course, it’s usually advisable to seek personal advice from a lawyer in most circumstances, there are resources online to help people learn their rights, file certain documents, or even defend themselves legally online.
The same is true for people making investment decisions as there are countless guides online that can help explain the different options available.
Unusual Topics
While the internet is awash with learning materials that you might find elsewhere, it’s also crammed with topics that you might not have ever considered. Some of these are entirely useless, such as a course that’ll teach you how to survive a zombie apocalypse, become a Jedi, or even talk to animals.
But some are more practical and helpful. For example, anyone that hasn’t learnt to swim yet can learn some of the basic principles of floating and moving in the water online before they jump into a pool.
Other courses, like ones that explain the peculiarities of American slang, could be useful for people that are moving to the United States from another English-speaking country since there are differences in the words and phrases used in each nation.
