Online Learning News

The free online courses available on Udemy definitely deserve scrutiny, but we're happy to say that these courses don't come with anything that should worry you. You can learn a valuable skill without spending a penny, and whilst you miss out on things like a certificate of completion with the free courses, you can still learn at your own pace.

We've checked out everything on offer this week, and lined up five of the best free online coding and programming courses covering Python. You don't need a voucher code to access these coding courses. You can simply enroll for free.

I teach on Skillshare as a side hustle. Since I already make art tutorials on Youtube regularly, I thought I could put in more effort to create structured courses that are easier for beginners to learn. My art courses are 30 minutes to 2-3 hours long. Those art courses require planning and were recorded over several days, sometimes weeks. I also sell those courses on my Gumroad page. It's easier to earn from Skillshare compared to Gumroad because Skillshare already has many students looking to learn. My sales from Gumroad are insignificant compared to Skillshare. The same courses are also available to my patrons on Patreon.

YouTube is kicking off a series of online courses that can lead to earning official, transferable college credits, an initiative aimed at breaking down cost and accessibility barriers to higher education.

The program, called College Foundations, is an extension of YouTube's existing partnership with Arizona State University and educational video company Crash Course, which was launched by internet creators Hank and John Green. The partners have been posting college-related videos for nearly a year on the YouTube channel Study Hall, which has nearly 42,000 followers. 

Samsung Electronics America, Inc., which is based in Ridgefield Park, N.J., said it will show off its new Samsung Education Community Platform for the first time at the 2023 National Future of Education Technology (FETC) Conference and Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) Convention and Expo.

The free-to-join platform will offer educators an online discussion forum, access to peer and expert coaching, and free, self-paced professional development courses. This will let them come up with new ways to use technology in the classroom that will help all students be more engaged and learn more.

While the exclusive, top-tier creators capture most of the headlines, many creators make less than $100,000 a year. In the past few years, a new group of creators has come up, and many of them are turning to careers in content creation to reach and teach people in their own communities. These creators with a strong sense of purpose aren't just meeting the growing demand for informative content and online learning opportunities; they're also using a variety of ways to make money from their work and paving a new path for long-term career success.

I’ve worked with thousands of creators, giving me a front-row seat to this evolution. Here are three trends transforming the creator economy in 2023 (and how purpose-driven creators are making the most of them).

Thought Industries, the leading enterprise learning platform for customer, partner and professional training, today announced the launch of its new online learning Academy powered by Helium, the world’s only fully customizable headless LMS developer framework, which was launched last year at the company’s annual customer and LMS industry event, Cognition22.

The Thought Industries Academy is the first site to use Helium. It is also the most flexible site in terms of how it can be designed and built. Helium cuts down on the time spent talking to developers and makes sure that every learning experience has the most impact possible. One of the major advantages of building the new Academy using Helium is the significant reduction in time-to-delivery – from six months to five weeks, including the design of PDF wireframes all the way through to implementing code.

Learners can upload their own books, Word and PDF documents, blogs, news, and web articles, among other things. This gets rid of the idea of predefined content lessons and gives students the freedom to read, practice, and learn with content that is important to them. The technologies in "Next Chapter" are powerful, personal, and easy to use. They give students new ways to learn quickly and effectively while saving time and money.

Learners also access a personalized vocabulary feed when reading as every "word" the reader has trouble with, looks up, or translates during a reading session is fed into a personal word library. The user then gets to practice these "personal words" through LillyPad's learning modules. In this way, vocabulary learning is prioritized based on the person's interests and curiosity. LillyPad has 10 creative learning modules. Each activity focuses on a set of important skills and gives real value for making progress that matters.