Online Education Website Selection - Part 1

There are numerous online education sites who offer hundreds of courses in various disciplines. Unlike Online Universities, you do not have to work towards a degree and can purchase one course or all the courses offered. Some online learning sites offer package deals in a particular topic or discipline. So how do you decide which online learning site to choose? Use the following as a guide for a start and then do a Self-Assessment to make your online education experience as useful as possible.

Course Selection

This is the most obvious as you probably have a topic in mind. However, you should be looking towards the future as well. Take a look through the entire online course catalogue. Are there other courses you might be interested in? Are there other related topics to the one you are interested in that would help expand your knowledge? Do the courses offered fit in with your  Self-Assessment? You want to be sure you can grow with the site and that the site offers both diversity in online course subjects and depth from beginner to advanced courses and related important subjects that might be worth studying.

Software

While this may not initially seem like an important feature, there are a number of basic features that any online education site should offer. The most important is navigation features including but not limited to a detailed Table of Contents and Index. Bookmarking is also important including remembering your last location at logoff. Learning for most people is not just reading through material but involves looking back at other sections and making connections from prior material as you move through the course making good navigation critical.

In the next article we will examine evaluation, pricing and testimonials and how to use each to your best advantage.