The epidemic keeps steering our everydays towards the online spaces, and the activity of learning is no exception either. In this article, we collected useful platforms that help us deepen our existing professional expertise or to expand our knowledge with online courses. Not only for creatives!
There are several online learning platforms that were already popular before the coronavirus outbreak. There are some that help us how to deepen our skills of using various software while also offering insight into other areas, such as website development, marketing, acquisition of presentation techniques, and we can even find a new hobby, for example crocheting. It’s only up to us what we want to learn at the moment.
“I primarily recommend online education platforms because of their comfort and structure. You can learn in your own pace, according to your own schedule. If you have a free afternoon, you can watch an entire course, but if you only have half an hour, not a problem, because you watch each lesson when it fits your schedule. And by structure, I mean that you don’t have to compile the sessions, but the entire material you need is there in one piece, in a logical and comprehensible manner. It’s as if you had a private tutor, who comes when you have time for them” – István Szép told us, who, in addition to teaching graphic design at Visart Art Academy, also has educational videos on the two most popular platforms: Udemy and Skillshare.
Of course there are plenty of educational materials on YouTube, too, available for free on top, but it’s important to stress that the majority of digital learning platforms pay a great attention to only include high-quality content in their course selection. Here come the platforms we recommend!
UDEMY
US-developed Udemy was founded in 2010, and today they have more than 50 million students and 57 thousand tutors, with their content available in more than 65 languages. In terms of professional areas, the platform is quite comprehensive: in addition to the various creative fields, you can also select courses on areas including IT, finances, management, and you can find different lifestyle management practices, too.
SKILLSHARE
After Udemy, perhaps Skillshare is the second most popular platform. A major difference between the two is that while Skillshare lets you access the various content in unlimited amount with a monthly subscription, on Udemy, you have to pay for each course. A further difference is that on Skillshare, the majority of courses builds on interaction, and not on classes: you can upload a task given in an educational material in the form of a project, and you can get further feedback and guidance from the tutor.
Online educational platforms basically form part of lifelong learning: this is verified by graphic designer Tsereteli Nata, too, who is a regular user of Skillshare: “It’s already been four years that I graduated from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, but I keep improving myself through online education, and Skillshare is a perfect platform for that. You can access several thousands of high-quality educational videos in exchange for a monthly subscription. An advantage of it is that the videos are not interrupted by disturbing ads, you can download them, and a part of your subscription goes to the tutors.”
DOMESTIKA
Perhaps one of the most rapidly developing online educational platforms is Spanish Domestika, where the majority of videos is available in Spanish language, with subtitles, of course. Several acknowledged experts and creatives have joined the site; amongst others, the online course of photographer duo Ana Devís and Daniel Rueda, whom we have written about in a previous article, is also available here. If you’d like to try it out, now you can access some of Domestika’s courses for free due to the epidemic, or you can also gift useful educational videos from the course.
“I too watch educational videos frequently by various content creators, therefore, I know how important it is to give help as a tutor, something that is truly useful and relevant, especially when it comes to knowledge about software. In my courses, I always encourage students to use the techniques learnt for implementing their own ideas; basically this is the most important objective of educational materials” – added Péter Nagy, who has been working on creating online educational materials for four years now.
The different platforms are not only significant from the side of users, they also prove to be useful and simple platforms from the point of tutors, too:
“I honestly recommend creating online courses on the dedicated platforms that, by the way, provide all support that the tutor may need to upload and publish the material in the easiest manner possible. They are extremely easy to use and last, but not least, they allow you to reach a wider audience across the world” – added Máté Vörös, who creates online educational videos in the topic of 3D modelling.
If learning in a foreign language is problematic for you, there are platforms offering useful information in Hungarian language, too: WEBUNI is a completely Hungarian platform, with Hungarian educational videos. You can access interior designer Eszter Bertóty’s online course GRID here, amongst others – you can read more about it here. Go and give it a try!
In addition to those listed above, check out the following platforms too: Lynda, Tutsplus, Coursera.
You can access the videos of the tutors mentioned in the article here:
István Szép | Udemy | Skillshare
Péter Nagy | Udemy | Skillshare
Máté Vörös | Udemy | Skillshare
Surface Book 3
Artist duo | NUBU
