This article is dedicated to provide you with the latest resources on top online course platforms that you can join to enrich or share your professional knowledge
The market for e-learning/online courses is rapidly growing. According to the estimate by Forbes News. It would worth $325 billion by 2025. As the pandemic has forced most students and teachers to stay at home and study online, the industry has seen significantly accelerated growth.
In this article, we share the information related to those e-learning platforms that have been heavily used by professionals and students for gaining their knowledge in various industries. We will also provide you a step-by-step guide for joining these platforms and the resources for course preparations. You may also find opportunities to join the e-learning platforms as an instructor to earn an extra income.
Note, to sell your courses, you need to do the following:
Have a website for your online courses
Price your courses and set up collection for one-time or recurrent payments
Upload your course materials such as video, assignments, and certificate information if any
Market your courses
While many companies were impacted and even had to shut down or file for bankruptcy during this pandemic, some businesses have actually grown rapidly and even faster than ever before, e.g., AI and Cloud Services.
For companies like Amazon, Teladoc, Crowdstrike, and Alibaba, their stock prices have gained parabolically. Why did that happen? Because their cloud services and AI capabilities could help companies transition from the local and manual business model to digital services.
The cloud-based services and AI would surely continue to grow and spread across industries. So, many people will soon try to learn related skills to get into this field. Knowing from my own experience, even a finance director in the retail industry needs to know Cloud or Python.
My recommendation to people, either looking for a job or currently working in the digital world, is to start picking up at least some programming skills in areas such as Python and Cloud Computing to prepare for the second wave of tech AI boom.
In this article, we introduce several top course platforms related to Cloud Computing and AI for your reference.
Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links where we may receive a small commission of your purchase at no additional cost to you. The selection of the top trading platforms and the information presented below are based on our best effort. We hope the information is helpful and appreciate your using the links as they allow us to run this blog and continue to provide free content.
Top Online Course Platform
1. Udemy
Udemy, with over 35 million learners and 57,000 instructors, is one of the best platforms in the online course marketplace. Currently, there are over 130,000 courses available in Udemy. 80% of the fortune 100 companies trust Udemy for employee upskilling and certification.
For Students and Professionals:
Udemy is the best platform for learning and growing your academic and professional skills. It has industry low course prices and frequently provides discounts to customers. If your company has a business partnership with Udemy, you would be able to take all Udemy courses for free!
Top AI and Cloud Courses:
Python:
This course first teaches the basics of Python and then covers the development of applications ranging from web scrapping to data visualization. You will build 10 Python apps during the course even if you don't know anything about programming beforehand.
The Python Mega Course is the most practical course you will find on the web currently. It teaches you to build actual desktop programs, web applications, and even mobile apps entirely in Python 3.
PyTorch is an open-source platform for deep learning. It provides a seamless path from research prototyping to production deployment. It is rapidly becoming one of the most popular deep learning frameworks for Python. Deeply integrated with Python, Pytorch makes it easy for you to write neural network layers in Python using those popular libraries and packages. A rich ecosystem of tools and libraries extends PyTorch and supports development in computer vision, NLP, and more.
This course has the balance between important theoretical concepts and practical hands-on exercises and projects. You will learn how to apply those concepts to your own data sets! When you enroll in this course, you will get access to the carefully laid out notebooks that help intuitively explain concepts with both code and explanations side by side. You will also get access to the slides that explain theory through easy-to-understand visualizations.
This PyTorch course focuses on Computer Vision, which is one of the most popular topics in AI. It has been used in various industries and different fields such as facial recognition, OCR extraction, and fraud identification.
Deep Learning jobs command some of the highest salaries in the development world. This course will take you from the complete basics to building state-of-the-art Deep Learning and Computer Vision applications with PyTorch.
This course is well constructed with very detailed explanations in each coding step to make it easy to follow. By the end of the course, you would have built some state-of-the-art Deep Learning and Computer Vision applications with PyTorch! The projects built in this course will impress even the most senior developers and ensure you have hands-on skills to bring to any project or company.
Azure:
Azure is a leading cloud computing service created by Microsoft and has been growing exponentially since last year. It offers many certifications that are detailed here. If you are interested in Cloud Computing or your company is conducting digital transformation, Azure is the platform to go for cloud and big data services.
We choose the Azure Fundamentals course as our recommendation here since it is the foundation for all other Azure certifications. It would be the starting point for your path to be an Azure Expert.
AWS:
AWS is another leader in the cloud service industry. The course is a great entry-level certification for AWS and prepares you well for working with the AWS platform, services, and ecosystem.
We recommend this course as it is suitable for beginners with no requirement on IT prerequisites or AWS Cloud experience. The course covers in-depth topics on the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C01 exam and packs practical knowledge on using AWS inside and out.
There are many invaluable courses available in Udemy. But it is hard to list all of them. Please use this Udemy link to access all those courses and find those most interesting to you.
One thing to say: practice is the key to master the learning material. You should not just watch the lecture videos but do practice and practice along. Practice makes you a master!
Knowing enough about the learning materials in Udemy already? Now let's find out how to join the Udemy Instructor Program and start creating and selling your own courses!
You can find the instructor program here. We have listed a few tips and requirements below for you to check before signing up for the Instructor Program.
Tips:
1. Create an outline
Decide on what materials you will teach and organize the lectures in sections. Generally, you can have 3-7 lectures and at least one assignment in each section.
2. Introduce yourself and create momentum
Create an introduction about yourself and the course.
Get students excited with a couple of interesting topics, such as the end goal or the final presentation of the course, in the first 1/2 lectures.
3. Cover one concept in each lecture
Keep students focused on one concept in each lecture. It also makes it easy for students to understand.
4. Add practice activities to create a hands-on learning experience
Add problems/quizzes at the end of each section for practice with the newly learned knowledge. It helps keep students going with a solid understanding.
Requirements:
1) has at least five lectures;
2) has at least 30 minutes of video;
3) has valuable educational content
4) is free to join
If your course satisfies the above requirements, you can sign up for the Udemy Instructor Program and create the course. The screenshot below is how the home page looks like once you sign up!
2. Coursera
Coursera is a professional online course marketplace with virtual classes from the world's best companies and Universities. The materials are more structured as academic courses in which you will have a syllabus. Usually, it takes 4 to 6 weeks to complete a course with 1-3 lectures per week. There are long assignments with due dates that will be marked by lecturers or tutors.
You will have the best learning experience with Coursera since many of the courses are instructed by world-class university professors. Some of them have mid-term and final exams and even offer certificates for successful completion. I think the certificates from Coursera have very high creditability and are well recognized by both Academia and Industry professionals.
In the Coursera platform, you can find not only industrial materials but also pure academic courses. It offers 3,900+ courses and specializations, 20+ Degrees & MasterTrackTM Certificates, and 13+ Professional certificates, which are highly recommended by industry professionals and academic professors. For example, the Deep Learning Specialization by Andrew Ng is one of the best courses available on all online learning platforms and highly recognized by industry experts. I would strongly recommend you to take this course if you are interested in Deep Learning and AI.
Pricing:
The listed prices for Coursera courses or certificates vary a lot. Usually, you will see some highlights like the one below with a 7-day free trial period and $39 to $49 / month afterward.
Some courses can be used to earn credits towards a degree. The total amount would be $4,500 as shown below. These courses are genuine for university certificates. So, the enrollment fee matches with the university tuition in general. However, you can also get financial support for these certificates if you meet the requirements.
We have had enough introduction to courses on AI, cloud computing, and machine learning. Now, let's take a look at creatives education!
3. Fiverr
You may be surprised that we put Fiverr Learn here as one of our top platform recommendations for online courses. The Fiverr Learn platform is rapidly growing. Recently, the platform has uploaded a tremendous number of high-quality courses related to digital marketing, creative education, SEO, and freelancing. We believe the introduction below would be beneficial if you want to start your own online business and need some guidance.
The instructors for the digital marketing and SEO courses are experts with extensive experience in these areas. They have practical examples to show how to grow digital services. The courses such as Conversion Rate Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization and Digital Declutter: Organizing Your Digital Life are very insightful, especially for beginners in online business. Interestingly, you can even find some courses to learn how to build online courses from the beginning.
Course Description: Through a mix of marketing frameworks, exercises, live demos, and over 30 real-world cases, you’ll learn why conversion rate optimization is the best-kept secret to driving revenue for your online business. From removing friction in your marketing funnel to landing page optimization, the course shows you a simple but effective approach to turn eyeball movements into more clicks and better real business results. This course is ideal for individuals who are ready to take their website to a new level.
Course Description: a comprehensive course that will take you, step-by-step, through the proven process to help you eliminate digital chaos, disorder, and addiction so you can get more done in less time.
How to be more productive by better organizing your digital life and your work
How to overcome digital overwhelm
How to finally gain control over your digital world
A system that actually works for organizing email, photos, files, and more
How to limit the negative effects of technology addiction
Pricing:
The pricing for Fiverr Learn varies based on different course materials and can range from $20 to above $100. All courses have a 30-day money-back guarantee policy so there is no risk for students to take the course and get a refund if they are not satisfied with the course content.
Best Course Creation and Marketing Platforms
We listed a few tips and requirements on how to create a course in the Udemy course section. You may wonder if there is any platform solely for creating and promoting courses like a digital store website, a web-as-a-service platform.
Well, let's introduce you to two leading platforms that can suffice your need on this! THINKIFIC and KAJABI.
4. THINKIFIC
If you are selling online courses and don't know how to set up your lectures and videos or to marketize, THINKIFIC would be your go-to platform to get started. With THINKIFIC, you can build up your course lectures and design your course website to showcase and marketize your course materials. THINKIFIC provides you a platform with a fully customizable course website for selling educations, uploading lecture videos, building quizzes, and organizing all learning contents with its drag and drop builder features. It also allows you to integrate with 3rd party platforms for further scale-up.
The key features of the THINKIFIC platform include the following:
Site Builder Functionality to allow you to build websites for online courses
Email Marketing Tools
Functionality to create your Discounts & Offers Coupons
Membership Site Integration for your lessons
Expand your marketing reach with affiliate partners
Reporting Capability to review your monthly revenue and other stats
You can use the THINKIFIC platform to build your own brand and online learning site!
It also has very competitive pricing for instructors. Please refer to below for the details of the plan and features.
5. KAJABI
KAJABI is a high-end all-in-one platform for users to build, market, and sell online courses, membership sites, or coaching programs with no coding experience required. Similar to the THINKIFIC platform, KAJABI provides a powerful course builder. The key features include powerful course site themes, email marketing automation, digital product upsells, payment integration with Stripe and PayPal, and blogging functionality.
With KAJABI, users can optimize and scale the online course business through its fully-automated marketing campaigns and funnels. Furthermore, it provides built-in analytics tools to let users track their progress and continue to grow their online learning business.
The key features of KAJABI are as follows:
Built-in Sales Funnel Software
Built-in email marketing tools
Marketing automation that can trigger emails or course offers based on user behaviors on your courses
Professional Theme design for your website
Monthly recurring subscription available for students to select
The KAJABI marketplace for users to discover your courses organically
There are some drawbacks to the KAJABI platform. For example, there is no free option. But you may able to try KAJABI free for 14 days. You will also need to use a 3rd party platform to offer completion certificates.
As KAJABI is a high-end platform, the pricing for KAJABI is more expensive than THINKIFIC. Below is the pricing for KAJABI starting with the Basic plan at $119 / month. The advantage is that a KAJABI plan already includes the sales funnel, marketing email automation, and other tools embedded in the platform. With other platforms, you would need to integrate these functionalities from 3rd party tools.
The above are the top 5 online platforms that you can use to enrich knowledge and marketize your courses.
Indeed, the platform and marketing are the key to the success on promoting your online courses. However, the software and equipment are also important for achieving success with your online courses!
The top software and equipment are required for creating high-quality content, high definition videos, and clear and smooth voice recording of the course. Always remember, an online lecture is like a one-to-one video lecture to the student. So it needs to look professional. In the paragraphs below, we will list the 1 to 2 products of best choices for each section.
1. Microphones
No doubt, microphones are crucial for creating your online course content. Bad audio is much easier to be detected by students and tends to lose your students.
That said, you should use the best microphone you can afford. Since it is for learning video, we recommend using a USB microphone. We have listed the top 2 microphones below for your reference. Also, don't forget to get some accessories, such as pop filters, foam balls, and shock mounts, for improving your audio quality.
1) Blue Yeti Microphone
It is the most advanced and versatile multi-pattern USB microphone available. Combining three capsules and four different pattern settings, Yeti is the ultimate tool for creating amazing recordings directly to your computer. With the all-new total blackout finish, Blackout Yeti adds style and energy to your recording or broadcasting setup. Blackout Yeti can capture anything with clarity and ease, which is unheard of in a USB microphone.
2) Stellar X2 Large Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser XLR Microphone
Most low-cost condenser microphones have a noticeable harsh and bright tone that makes them hard to sit in a mix and can cause sound fatigue over time. The Stellar X2 is different. Its capsule and circuit are carefully tuned to produce a very smooth sound that can easily sit in any mix without the tinny harshness of a low-cost condenser microphone.
2. Headphones
Once you have recorded your audio, it will always need editing to ensure your online lecture is professional. That means you will need a reliable way to listen to the audio tracks to check the quality, syncing, and levels. That's why having a professional set of noise-canceling headphones will greatly benefit your editing process.
Below are the top 2 headphones selected for your reference.
1) Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 80 Ohm Studio Headphone for professional recording
The DT 770 PRO (80 ohms) is a closed dynamic headphone. It is ideal for professional use as a monitoring headphone in studios or on the move.
Maintenance: As with any equipment to be used in a lose proximity to sensitive areas of the body, it is essential to keep the ear pads and headband clean. Use a damp cloth and warm water only for cleaning and do not let any water drop into the transducers.
2) Focal Listen Pro Closed-Back Studio Headphones
Listen Professional circum-aural closed back headphones are the essential work tool for music production. They confirm Focal's ambition to establish itself as a leader in the professional headphone market. These headphones won't fail to amaze users through their high-quality audio and dynamics, which can often only be experienced with more expensive headphones. The tonal balance and the capacity to reproduce the entire audio spectrum with acute precision make them the essential ally for monitoring transfer quality. It includes 2 OFC copper 24AWG cables with a very low resistance.
3. Screen Recording and Editing Software
Since for online lectures, it is essential to record your screen to present the knowledge to students. Whether it is the programming coding steps or slideshow presentation, professional recording software is required to provide you a smooth and seamless recording experience. We recommend the Camtasia Software as the leading all-in-one software for Screen Recording and Audio/Video Editing. It has many features for you to quickly record and edit your videos, which are very easy for a beginner to learn. It is less costly than Adobe and Articulate 360, which charge on a monthly or annual basis. You can try Camtasia for free and have a 30-day Money Back Guarantee if you purchase the software.
4. Webcam
Sometimes, the instructors may want to show themselves in the lectures. Especially for those fine art or music courses, they need to present in front of students to provide an in-person class feel. A webcam is a must-have in this circumstance.
Recording equipment can be as simple as your iPhone or a webcam. To provide the best quality of the recording, we recommend using a USB webcam instead of the built-in webcam for the desktop or laptop. We selected one professional webcam product below for your reference.
1) Logitech BRIO – 4K Ultra HD Webcam with 5x Digital Zoom for Recording and Streaming
Logitech is bringing the ultra HD video quality to their famous webcam line with the brand new BRIO. Equipped with high-tech optical lenses to help deliver razor-sharp images, BRIO offers professional-level visuals in one small package! BRIO is very good for recording, streaming, and calling at 4k ultra HD. You can see all of the details and colors that pop out on the screen. Models with 1080P and 720p video resolutions are also available. Besides, Logitech’s own RightLight 3 helps correct the lighting of your surroundings. It will automatically adjust the image quality to compensate for too much or too little light with high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities.
5. Lighting and Accessories
Last but not least, you need to make sure you have the perfect lighting for your video. You don't want it to be too dark or too bright on the instructor. Thus it is crucial to have a high-quality three-point-lighting to ensure the instructor shines. A small portable ring light should suffice at the beginning. But you may want to have a studio lighting set depends on your course materials.
We chose one portable ring light product below from amazon for your reference:
1) LED 10.2" Desktop Selfie Ring Light with Tripod Stand & Remote Control
Hope you learned something new!
Online courses can help you launch a side hustle, grow your audience, teach students the topics that you care about, and enrich your knowledge whenever you want.
Almost all schools and universities have switched from offline classrooms to online courses. The population taking online courses surged exponentially in 2020 and would foreseeably continue to grow in 2021. Students seem to adapt very well to the change of course format. One advantage of the online course is its flexibility for students to take it anytime and anywhere and, most importantly, to replay the materials when needed.
For instructors who want to start an online teaching business, it is the best time to start right now!
When choosing an online teaching platform, remember to do your research and consider the time restrictions, monthly costs, and available marketing features.
Creating a course isn't as simple as add a webinar to a website, or add your videos to online learning platforms. You would need to produce the course content first!
The success of your course ultimately relies on the quality of your content and how well you market. A platform and other equipment can suffice your basic needs to create an online course. But you would still need to do the planning, market research, development, and most importantly, marketing.
When choosing the best platform, you must decide what features are right for you. There are possibly hundreds of topics to teach and millions of students ready to learn from you.
Now, you can get started. Wish you all the best!
Thanks for the interesting article. Our company is constantly improving the software to facilitate the work of the personnel department.