While we are adjusting ourselves to the new normal in our lives with the social distancing growing deeper into our societies, forcing our kids to be locked inside the homes. Keeping our kids busy is certainly a challenging task and ensuring that they learn something every day is equally significant and is on every parent’s mind. Thankfully, the internet has a lot to offer. Especially when the topic is education, the resources on the internet are limitless. Learning doesn’t have to be expensive, there are a plethora of free courses to brush up your kid’s skills that require nothing more than an internet connection and a smartphone or laptop. Interestingly, many popular platforms are absolutely free. From science, music, maths to coding, the best free online learning awaits on the following ten online learning platforms.
1. Harvard University
Harvard University offers free online access to engaging course materials, lectures, programs, and other informative educational content for students of all age groups. The aim is to offer efficient, accessible avenues for students who desire to learn but who may not have an opportunity to obtain a Harvard tuition. Harvard’s online programs are offered through several online learning content providers, including Harvard Business School (HBX), Harvard Medical School (HMX), Harvard Extension School, EdX, GetSmarter, and HarvardX. There are online courses on nearly every subject you can imagine so your kids can get a Harvard education, without paying the tuition bill.
2. Codeacadmy
Launched in 2011, Codeacademy offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages and tools. Their interactive learning environment allows students to learn to code and receive feedback in real-time, at their own comfort level. Moreover, students will be exposed to articles, videos, quizzes, and projects to enhance their learning skills. If you want to enroll in the course, you can sign up for a Codeacadmy Pro account for $19.99 per month, which will give you more access to hands-on projects, quizzes, and experts. Although the basic courses are all offered for free, they might be enough to get your kids skilled in coding.
3. Alison
Alison is a free education platform offering certification on various subjects. The platform offers courses mainly in business, science, math, marketing, and health but also includes language learning programs. You can pick from short certificate courses or opt for “diploma” courses, which are more inclusive. While Alison online courses are free to participate in, if you complete a certificate or diploma course, you’ll need to pay a fee to get a printed or digital certificate for your kid. Parents also can opt to pay for a premium account for around $9 per month, which will give you access to more features such as discounts on certificate fees, no advertisements, and access to resume-building characteristics.
4. Udacity
Online learning platform Udacity offers nanodegree programs that are taught by leading industry experts, ensuring that the material is relevant and providing job-ready techniques. They offer a long list of free courses in analytics, artificial intelligence/machine learning, digital marketing, software development, and cloud computing from universities and companies such as Stanford, Google, and Amazon. While their certifications aren’t free, a lot of the courses included in Udacity’s nanodegree programs are offered free of cost. If you want to complete a nanodegree certification you will need to pay a monthly fee of $400, nanodegrees typically take users six to 12 months to finish.
5. Skillshare
For free online courses on art, creative writing, music, etc, you may want to look to Skillshare if you’re trying to boost your kid’s skills. The platform offers free courses on a wide range of topics. The online platform offers classes that include video lessons, project overviews, templates to work with, and other resources for students. Parents can also pick from a $15 per month subscription or you can pay $99 for the year. Furthermore, the premium membership offers more features such as teacher support, no advertisements, offline access to download class materials, and unlimited access to all online programs.
6. Microsoft Learn
Microsoft offers several online courses and certifications for the kids that cover various products and services of Microsoft. Their online courses contain several modules that are relevant to the course topic and certifications are more focused, with one or two exams required to earn the certification for your kids. Although all of their self-paced courses and exams are free, if you want to take an instructor-led course for your kid, you can do so through Microsoft Certified instructors. However, it’s not assured that the certified instructors will offer courses for free, so that is something to consider if you want entirely free courses for your kids.
7. Khan Academy
Founded in 2006 as a non-profit educational organization, Khan Academy focuses on educating school kids online for free. Collaborating with many post-secondary schools, Khan Academy offers a usable, well-organized user-friendly interface. Besides curating many courses from around the web, Khan Academy offers extraordinary depth on many different topics. Their lessons are taught through YouTube videos, with additional engaging online exercises and quizzes for kids. Khan Academy’s online courses can be accessed on a mobile device and most have been translated into several languages, with nearly 20,000 subtitle translations available on their platform. While this might not serve as formal education, it’s an easy way to acquire new skills as your kids advance their knowledge.
8. EdX
EdX is a famous online education provider with university-level courses developed by schools, non-profit organizations, universities, and so on. Their online courses are offered for free to users, with courses from universities such as MIT, Harvard, IIMB, and so on. Their courses involve high-quality short videos, interactive learning exercises, tutorial videos, online textbooks, and a forum where students can interact with one another, ask questions, and directly reach out to instructors. At the end of the online course, your kids will receive a certificate of completion and some courses might count as college or university credits, depending on the institution.
9. Udemy
Udemy’s online courses are similar in concept to Coursera’s but additionally allows students to build custom courses from lessons. Partnering with many top universities and schools, the platform mixes the customizable platform of other sites with a heavy emphasis on top quality online learning. The online learning platform mixes free and paid content for the learners. Some of the online courses on Udemy are free, while some are available at a fee, it will depend on the course and teacher. Though even paid courses won’t break the bank, as most go on sale for as low as $9.99, so you can typically find a good deal if there’s a course you want to take for your kids that isn’t free of cost.
10. Coursera
Coursera is a free learning platform that collaborates with top-notch universities and organizations around the globe. They offer an extremely wide range of in-depth courses and perspectives on one searchable database and include courses from many top universities, museums, and corporations. The online learning platform is extremely useful if your kids are looking to study many different topics or want courses from different schools and groups. Your kid can take up courses on art, science, maths, etc. They just have to sign up for free and utilize all of Coursera’s free courses, however, if your kids want to take a certificate or degree program, they vary in cost.
Final Thoughts
Whether you wish to enhance your kids existing education or want to learn them a new skill, it’s never too late for them to become a life-long learner. These free online learning platforms can help your kids gain valuable knowledge, earn a certificate, complete a degree, or simply expand their range. All these free online learning platforms provide interactive lessons making it interesting for the kids. They always make sure to keep your kids occupied. Moreover, they also offer games and quizzes that kids can play, that is enlightening as well as enriching.
