Distance education platforms were able to invade the Internet in a few years, and were able to attract thousands of users as a result of the many advantages that it granted them, so technological development was the main factor in the emergence of so-called self-education or free education.
Who among us would have imagined one day to learn programming or graphic design while sitting at home without making an effort to go to an institute in order to learn those skills.
Likewise, the great spread in jobs such as marketing and photography, along with programming, has prompted many to learn these skills with ease and sometimes without paying any money.
What does distance education mean?
You can call it e-learning, as it is the latest educational method that relies mainly on communication technology, and in it the lecturers transfer their explanation of different fields in videos divided into parts to other countries through websites devoted to self-education mainly.
Distance education may be simultaneous transmission, that is, in the presence of a live video broadcast that enables the lecturer and the student to interact directly, and thus gives that opportunity for the learner to ask all his questions and inquiries, which helps in ease of understanding and comprehension.
The best distance education platforms
1. Coursera:
The number one site in distance education platforms in the world
We cannot talk about the best self-education sites without mentioning the distinguished Coursera site, which has many of the features that make it one of the leading sites in e-learning.
But before we talk about its advantages, we have to know the history of its establishment, as it was established in 2012, in California, USA, and the site includes more than 1200 different educational courses.
One of the advantages of the site is that it offers many free educational courses to many learners, in addition to the presence of some paid educational courses, and provides all kinds of specializations that the user needs from languages, marketing, psychology and history, in addition to medicine, engineering, health and business administration, in addition to literature and journalism.
The site allows you to obtain an accredited certificate from the best universities in the world such as the University of Pennsylvania and Michigan in the United States of America, as well as the University of Sydney, Australia.
The learner can start registering in any educational course by starting to log in first and then choosing the educational course he wants to learn, and some educational courses have a practical aspect that enables you to apply all of what you learned in the course by working on a project specific to the field you studied.
And in the event that you pass this project, you can obtain the approved certificate to become a strong addition to your CV.
Through this site, you can obtain a diploma in the field that you are studying, and it consists of a number of interrelated educational courses, ending a graduation project that you must pass in order to obtain that diploma.
Coursera is interested in conducting simple tests during your study of the educational course in order to measure your level of focus and understanding of the content of the field that you have viewed, which is a strong advantage of the site, as it is not only limited to providing scientific content, but also concerned with your understanding and application of the content you study.
The cost of the certificates accredited on this site ranges from $ 30 to $ 100, but you can submit a financial support request on this site in order to obtain the certificate for free.
Coursera's advantages have attracted more than 10 million registered learners from all over the world in all different courses.
Coursera is available on Android and iPhone phones.
2. Udemy site:
Udemi was founded in 2010, and the number of its courses reaches more than 6000 educational courses, as the site was able in a short period of time to expand and develop, since the site was established, about 1000 lecturers have published his lectures on this site in various fields.
In 2011, the site obtained funding of about $ 33 million, and the value of this funding increased to more than “$ 60 million” in 2016.
Udemi offers training courses in all areas that every learner, student or graduate needs, and the most prominent of these areas are: programming, marketing, design, teaching, music, as well as photography and languages, and these courses vary between free and paid courses.
One of the advantages of Udemy is that its training courses are divided into three levels: beginners, intermediate and professional, and that is in all fields and in order to suit all learners who want to study their preferred field, by using the search engine.
Udemy is very interested in the views and evaluations of visitors on the site, as next to each educational course you will find reviews through which you can know the quality and effectiveness of the content of that course you want to register for, and after you finish it, you can add your evaluation to it as well.
Among the advantages of the site also is that it sometimes offers discounts for some educational courses, and this is an excellent opportunity to seize them and an added advantage.
After you register on the Udemy website, you can start choosing the field that you want to study and after completing the training course, you will finally get a free certificate stating that you have completed your studies of your preferred field and then add it to your CV.
You can download the Udemi application, which is available on Android and iPhone phones.
3. Udacity website:
If you are looking for a professional educational platform in the field of technology, then you only have to start registering on the Udacity site and learn what you want in this field, as Udacity is one of the leading sites in e-learning in general and the field of technology in particular.
Udacity goes back to 2011, when it was initially just an experiment in e-learning, when two students, Sebastian Thran and Peter Norving from Stanford University in the United States of America, published videos of an educational course on Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.
It developed into the existence of a specialized educational platform in this field in order to spread technology content to all parts of the world.
When you register the site, you will find that its educational courses focus on the fields of computers, smart phone applications and programming, and among its most prominent programs: Android application development, as well as robotics and machine learning.
In the beginning, the number of enrolled in the courses of this site was more than "160 thousand students" from different parts of the world, until this site was able to publish more educational courses in various fields of technology until it reached more than one million users now, as it is available for the site The application is available on Android and iPhone devices.
4. Khan Academy website:
If we talk about the leading platforms in sports, engineering and science, we should mention the Khan Academy website, which is a not-for-profit educational platform, and it was founded in 2006 by Salman Khan, one of the most famous American educators.
In the beginning, in 2004, he used to publish videos on the website “Yahoo” explaining mathematics, which was met with great demand from his relatives and friends, and within two years he managed to achieve great popularity, which prompted him to establish Khan Academy and work on developing and expanding it.
In 2009, the number of views of Khan's videos reached more than "30 thousand viewers", as his style was distinguished by simplicity and clarity in explanation, and as a result of this great success that he achieved, he received the Microsoft Award for Educational Technology.
What makes Khan's simple style of explaining is that he uses a smart board while recording his videos and explanations through drawings for illustration, and each video is about 3 minutes long.
Khan Academy is a non-profit academy, as we mentioned previously, and depends for its funding on donations that come from various institutions, most notably the Google Foundation, which donated $ 2 million to it in 2010.
The Khan Academy platform is the ideal platform for all students studying mathematics in its various branches from school to university, and the site offers many videos explaining chemistry, biology and physics, as well as the field of finance.
One of the advantages of the site is that it offers videos suitable for the student’s class and videos suitable for the class of teachers, as well as other videos for the parent category, and these videos are free and you do not need to pay any money to watch them.
Khan Academy applications are available on Android and iPhone phones, in addition to that there is an Arabic version with many subtitled videos in order to facilitate the understanding of non-English speaking Arab students.
5. Lynda website:
The leading sites in self-education are not limited to this point, there is also the site of Linda, which is an educational company founded in 1995, and offers hundreds of training courses in various fields, most notably: marketing, human resources, customer service, sales, in addition to various design fields, in addition to Technology areas such as programming.
One of the advantages of the Linda site is that the training courses are divided into three stages: the beginner stage, the intermediate stage, as well as the advanced stage, in order to suit all categories, in addition to that the educational courses are divided between free and paid courses.
You can start learning the area you want to learn either by choosing a specific topic from its subjects, or by learning programs specific to each field, such as Photoshop, or by choosing a major that you begin to study from the first level until the level of professionalism.
Another advantage of the site is that it is certified by LinkedIn, one of the most famous social networking sites, in addition to that it includes a group of the best lecturers in various fields, in addition to the fact that many of the videos are translated into Arabic.
You can download the Linda application, which is available on Android and iPhone phones.
6. Edx site:
One of the most prominent leading websites in self-learning. The IDEX website dates back to 2012 and was established by Harvard University in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute in the United States of America. The main goal of creating the site was to develop the skills of university students by publishing educational lectures in various Domains.
The site includes about 2000 different educational courses offered by 140 educational institutes from different countries of the world, and the most prominent fields offered to students are: computer science, languages, engineering, as well as humanities and business administration.
IDEX has managed to attract many students from different countries of the world, as the number of users on the site reaches more than one million users.
The educational courses on the Edex site range between free and paid courses, and these courses are provided by the best universities and institutes in the world, such as Harvard University and Queensland University in Australia.
One of the advantages of IDEX is that it provides distinct services to the learner, such as the "mini-master's" program, which allows you to learn more than one scientific subject in one field, and its prices range from "400 to 1200 dollars."
The LEARN application is available on both Android and iPhone phones.
7. Future Learn website:
Global distance education platforms are not limited to this point, there is also FutureLearn, which has been able to compete strongly in the list of the most important e-learning sites, and it was established in 2013, and aims to provide various educational courses from the world's leading educational universities and institutes.
FutureLearn is a private company affiliated with the Open University in London, and it was founded in partnership with the best universities and various educational institutions in London, most notably the British Council.
FutureLearn offers educational courses in various fields that the labor market currently requires, such as programming, teaching, law, management, journalism, photography, engineering, science, teaching languages such as English, Spanish and Italian.
After you log on to the site, you can start choosing the course you want to learn, and after you pass that course, you get a certificate approved by the best universities and educational institutes in the world, and that certificate is paid unlike free educational courses.
8. Rwaq platform:
One of the most important and best Arabic platforms in e-learning, and one of the advantages of Rwaq is that many of its educational courses are free, and it also provides the learner with educational courses in various disciplines he needs such as marketing, entrepreneurship and computer science.
In addition to learning languages, engineering and science, in addition to journalism, technology and information systems, courses offered by a group of lecturers from the best university professors.
What distinguishes Rewaq is that it is not only limited to explaining the content through videos only, but also is concerned with the extent of the learner's understanding and understanding by setting a test for him with a number of questions specific to each topic that has been explained.
It is also possible for each learner to ask about any part that he did not understand in the annotated video to be answered by the lecturer himself or those registered in the same course.
Any learner can register for more than one training course for more than one field, and each training course lasts from half an hour to one hour divided into small clips of videos that range from 7 minutes to a quarter of an hour.
With starting to learn what you want by creating a new account, starting to browse the educational courses, and then registering in the field that you want to learn, you will get a temporary certificate stating that you have completed the lectures for that course along with another certificate approved by the site in case you pass the tests.
Any learner can also use an application. The Rwaq application is available on Android and iPhone devices
9. Hasoub Academy:
Among the distinguished Arab distance education platforms, as the Hsoub Academy website offers a range of educational courses and articles in the fields of programming, marketing and entrepreneurship, as well as graphic design, and its services are not limited to this limit, as it also offers a set of books on programming and freelance work.
Hsoub company was founded in 2011 in its headquarters in the United Kingdom, and its services are not limited to self-education only, it supports freelance work through the five independent websites of Hsoub company, as these sites depend on the system of displaying services and the skills that it possesses.
Whoever desires to self-employment for clients to see and buys that service at the price set by the service owner.
One of the advantages of Hsoub Academy website is that each of the educational courses it offers depends mainly on practical application, it is not based on explaining the content only, and its courses are suitable for beginners and professionals alike.
After creating an account on the Hsoub Academy website and choosing the educational course in the field that you want to learn, and you are able to pass the final exam for the course, you will finally be able to obtain a certificate approved by the site.
Conclusion
Distance education platforms have been able to achieve tremendous success in helping many students in various countries of the world learn the field they love and develop and enhance their skills that are currently required by the labor market.
It was not in the imagination of anyone one day to learn what he loves while sitting at home and without having to pay any fees for it, it just requires that you use your computer or mobile phone beside your full focus with the annotated content.
Ensuring that everyone learns and benefits, regardless of their language or culture, was among the main motivations that led to the emergence of distance education platforms such as Coursera and Udemi at the global level, and sites such as Rewaq at the Arab level.