One area where the internet is enabling and empowering is education. Previously, we showed some of the best learning management systems that allow universities, colleges, businesses, and organizations to manage the process of learning, from attendance to grading to interacting with students. That was essentially about how to manage the process of learning.
This article is about the learning itself. Below, we spotlight a baker’s dozen of online learning platforms. There are literally hundreds of these things out there – online services with large libraries of instructional material. Rather than try to present to you an exhaustive list, we decided to touch on some of the best and most representative of a wide variety of services and platforms.
Speaking personally, I’ve been an avid consumer of online learning resources since online learning began. Back in the dark ages when I studied for my engineering degree, we didn’t have anything resembling the internet. But the library had a large collection of videotaped courses (on reel-to-reel tape!), and I found myself watching as many courses as I could, on top of my regular course load. When online video became practical, services like Lynda.com started to flourish, and I was there as well. 
Back then, the online learning platforms tended to sell courses a la carte. Today, most online learning platforms sell all their courses for a single monthly fee, which means it’s now possible to subscribe to a few services and have access to more educational resources than you can possibly consume in a lifetime. 
I hope the availability of all this amazing information excites you as much as I do. We may live in a world where there’s a pandemic but also where vast sources of knowledge are a click away – and some are even free.
You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV. LinkedIn Learning leans heavily into technical and web development topics. The company reports over 600 coding courses, and a total of more than 2,100 courses on the topics of design, web development, and photography. The company also offers more than 1,200 business-related courses. If you pay month-by-month, pricing is $39.99 a month, but if you buy a year, you’re paying effectively $26.99 per month. Ouch. Since we last looked at LinkedIn Learning a year ago, the price went up by a full 33%! There are also team programs available. If you’re affiliated with a college or university, check because two universities I work with provide free access LinkedIn Learning courses as part of student and faculty interfaces.  Pros:

Deep selection of professional development coursesOften excellent instructorsAcces free through many colleges and universities

Cons:

Some product-specific course are out-of-dateIndividual user pricing increased a lotNot for K-12 and traditional college subjects

This works because of Coursera’s business model, which can be hard to fully understand. Fundamentally, if you want to listen and watch on your own, it’s free. But if you want grading, interaction with instructors, and any form of credential ranging from certificates to actual accredited degrees, you have to pay up. It’s a great opportunity for learning, but if you’re looking for a piece of paper, you might want to shop around – although you may well still end up going through Coursera. Degree pricing is steep, but nothing like in-person pricing. Pros:

Astonishing amount of university courses available for freeTaught by university professors and instructorsVery wide list of participating universities

Cons:

If you want certificates, diplomas, or other confirmation of learning, it gets expensiveLimited selection of online degreesNo online doctoral-level degrees

While math is certainly a focus, Khan Academy offers classes in the arts and humanities, science, economics, programming, reading, language arts, and even personal finance. Of special interest to homeschoolers, Khan Academy has special curriculums by grade level, and even includes a wonderful “get ready” series where students can prep for the grade they’re going into. Khan Academy also has college test prep programs as well. And it’s all free. Pros:

Free, free, free…and free!Get Ready series can be hugely helpfulGreat place to come up to speed on math

Cons:

Somewhat limited professional development selectionGreat learning for K-12, but not actual K-12 classesHard to find any real cons for Khan

When I reached out to Skillshare for clarification, I was told: “One point we want to emphasize is that only those who meet our quality standards can teach on the platform. In the past few years, Skillshare has implemented a rigorous grading system, removed many low-quality courses, and has rolled out ‘Staff Picks’ to highlight some of the most popular content.”  The corporate spokesperson continued, “Skillshare is both an open platform (where anyone who meets our quality standards can teach) and a publisher of original content (aptly named Originals). An advantage of Skillshare’s open model platform is the ability to keep a pulse on the types of content the community is creating and watching. This enables Skillshare to better predict future topics and courses that will be in demand.” Classes are focused on three main segments: Create, Build, and Thrive. Create classes include art, music, photography, writing, animation, and various maker skills. Build is about business building, so you find courses on analytics, entrepreneurship, and marketing. And Thrive is about lifestyle and productivity. Skillshare wins our Holy Cow, Batman Award for Stupendous Price Increases. There are some free classes (these help new teachers build up student followers). But, since we last looked at Skillshare in September 2020, the main program jumped from a $9.99-per-month plan by 3x to a $32/mo plan. You can save a few bucks by buying a whole year at $167.88 (which works out to $13.99/mo). Finally, I have to criticize Skillshare for hiding their pricing. You have to first create an account to be able to see current pricing. Hiding pricing until after a user signs up is unacceptable. Period. Pros:

Some courses, if you can separate the wheat from the chaff, are greatInstructors bring personal life learning experience to their subjectsGood selection of skills-based courses

Cons:

They go out of their way to hide pricingEnormous price increase over recent yearsMixed bag of quality, almost anyone can sign up to teach

Udemy reports it has 150,000 online video courses on topics like design, development, marketing, IT and software, personal development, business, photography, and music. Instruction is essentially crowd-sourced, in that just about anyone can become an instructor and upload a class. Pricing is different for each course. For example, the APIs: Crash Course is $24.99, while Modern React with Redux is $12.99 (but apparently lists at $19.99).  There is also a business plan that lets a certain number of team members view an unlimited number of a subset of the course library. Pros:

Very wide range of coursesCourses sold individually at mostly reasonable prices

Cons:

Limited instructor vettingNo “all you can eat” pricingCourse quality widely varies

So, that said, what does Udacity offer? They offer a lot of varied tech training, organized into programs. One way they describe themselves is “bootcamp quality at 1/10 the cost,” and with a wide range of hands-on courses, that’s not a bad view of it. However, what Udacity offers that a lot of online learning platforms don’t is access to a mentor, who can help guide students through courses and answer questions. Finally, Udacity also offers an enterprise program. The program allows for bulk onboarding and prescriptive course planning, tailoring their offerings to your company’s needs.  Pros:

Bootcamp-style programsOnboarding and planning support for enterprisesAccess to mentors to answer questions

Cons:

Nanodegrees are not degreesThey market themselves as offering “degrees” but aren’t accredited in any way

The company offers 1,102 leadership and business courses on 41 subjects, 7,151 technology and developer courses on 67 subjects, and 2,747 compliance courses on 38 subjects. Clearly, if you’re dealing with compliance-related issues, this can be a good resource for you. I haven’t seen that depth of compliance education anywhere else. The company even has a series of classes on learning remotely. Finally, the company has team-oriented programs for businesses, as well. Pros:

Sone excellent career-specialized instructionDeep compliance trainingTeam-oriented programming

Cons:

Company has a history of financial troubleLimited courses outside of tech industry interests

Courses are sold in all-you-can-eat form for a monthly or yearly fee. You can have access to all the courses for $29 per month or add $20 for practice tests and virtual labs. Take this from a guy with a Masters in Education who had to write entire papers on learning retention: You want the practice tests and labs. Practice tests trigger the concept of observable behavior, which helps you evaluate your skills and drives learning “stickiness.” Labs are a form of constructivism or learning by doing. My experience shows that hands-on experience is absolutely essential to building an employable skill. There are business plans as well, but I recommend you go to the site, set up an account, and start with the IT Starter Pack, a library of about 65 hours of training, for free. Pros:

That free starter packAll IT, all the timePractice tests and labs

Cons:

Practice tests and labs are extra costNot much for beginnersDefinitely not for K-12 STEM courses

Most courses are free, but many offer a fee-based completion certificate in the $100 to $200 range. There are so-called micro-degree programs (which, as we discussed earlier, are like degree programs in that they include the letters “d-e-g-r-e-e” in their name, but not in that they are not, in any way, degree programs).  edX does offer some legitimate Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees online, some of which are actually astonishing deals. Georgia Institute of Technology offers a Masters in Cybersecurity for a total of $9,920, or about $3,300 per year – which is ridonkulously inexpensive for an accredited Masters from a school as well known as Georgia Tech. Pros:

Many free coursesRelatively low-cost completion certificatesThat insanely low-priced Masters from Georgia Tech

Cons:

Another program touting fake degreesSomewhat incoherent mix of classes and programsNo programs offer accredited online PhDs.

MasterClass courses used to be sold as individual courses, priced in the hundred dollar range. In the last year or so, that changed. For $180 per year (that works out to $15/month), you gain access to the entire library.  My wife and I bought a subscription this year, and so far I’ve watched the incomparable Doris Kearns Goodwin teach a course on the presidents, Aaron Sorkin (who is far more boring than his characters) teach about screenwriting, Ken Burns teach about documentary filmmaking (and the backstories on some of those are amazing), and campaign strategy taught by Turd Blossom* and David Axelrod. *Just the idea that Karl Rove (President George W. Bush loved giving out nicknames, and Rove’s was Turd Blossom) who masterminded most of W’s political career, and David Axelrod, who was President Obama’s chief campaign strategist, taught this course together was fascinating enough. It was a complete treat for a politics nerd like me. OK, so here’s how to think about MasterClass. Courses are hits and misses, but the hits are home runs. Remember that the work output of some of these amazing folks isn’t necessarily the same as their teaching skills. That said, if you want to learn and experience some backstories, but aren’t expecting to apply this to career growth, it’s a great investment. I’ve had a blast with it, and I’m certainly going to try to convince my wife to let us renew for next year as well. Pro:

World-class experts and celebrities teach their specialtiesWide range of absolutely fascinating coursesQuality production values

Cons:

More edutainment than educationGreat people don’t always make for great teachersSome topics more shallow than you might expect from their promotion

The UC Berkeley Extension is one of many college and university extension programs. I’m spotlighting it here as an example of the genre because I had the honor of teaching there for more than a decade. The UC Berkeley Extension offers a wide range of courses and certificates. Courses almost always bestow college credit which can be applied to a degree program at a later time. Most of my students were in the San Francisco Bay Area when I started teaching, but over the years more and more of my students were in locations all over the world. If you want to grow your career and do it affiliated with an excellent school, consider extension classes and definitely take a look at those at Berkeley. Go Bears! Pros:

Extension courses designed to meet career needsVery high quality instructorsCollege-credit available worldwideThe UC Berkeley name

Cons:

Subject areas come and go based on perceived demandCourses could benefit from more video-based lectures

Topics are all over the map, but they are universally fascinating and thought-provoking. They are almost exclusively given by subject-matter experts steeped in their field, and in many cases encapsulate years of research and analysis into a tight 15- or 20-minute talk. I sometimes find TED Talks to be the intellectual equivalent of kitten and puppy videos: You can watch them and watch them and watch them and get happily lost in front of the screen for hours. Just as much yapping, but not nearly as much fur. Pros:

Absolutely fascinating topicsMost lectures short and tightThat signature TED style

Cons:

That signature TED styleSome topics hit or miss

But here’s the secret within the secret. I also used YouTube when working on my graduate degree, because there were often concepts explained with great clarity on YouTube that were opaque in textbooks. I often found that student projects intended to showcase their grasp of knowledge wound up helping me improve my grasp of the knowledge. Last year, my wife and I upgraded to the $17.95 family plan for YouTube Premium, which eliminated all the pre-roll and interstitial ads. I have to say that it is a luxury, but it makes YouTube a much more pleasant experience. Along with Wikipedia, I truly consider YouTube to be one of the Wonders of the Modern World. If you want to learn almost anything and are OK with having to sift through junk for the gems, there’s great information here, and it’s all free. Pros:

Everything you ever wanted to know about anything everSome instruction is incredibly usefulFree, plus lots of puppy and kitten videos

Cons:

Completely ungated and unmanaged video contentSome content is wildly incorrectSome content is downright horrible

That said, we presented courses that can help you meet a wide range of goals. If you want to pick up an online degree (an accredited degree – heed our cautions in the article), there are a few places you can turn. If you want certifications, there are some other good choices. If you don’t care about the credential, but need the knowledge, there are even more resources to look at – including a few that focus on specific areas like IT or academics. Then, there are the free offerings. Khan Academy, TED, and YouTube offer a wealth of information, and they’re free. If you’re not sure (or can’t afford to) budget for a more premium paid service, there’s a vast amount you can learn just from those three. The bottom line is that it’s both valuable and wonderful being a lifelong learner. These resources will open doors and open your mind. Enjoy. If you’ve used any of these services, or have others you wish to recommend, please share in the comments below.