4 FREE (or almost free) Apps To Continue Your Education
The world is constantly changing. There is always going to be a skill you can refine more, a new certificate to get, a different path of education to go down, etc. As the world changes, you yourself also change. I bet you don’t have the same interests you used to, or maybe you put off a hobby/skill you were passionate about years ago and have rediscovered your passion for it.
As life as we know it changes before us we can find ourselves wanting, or needing, to improve our skills, create new skills, and finding new hobbies and interests. We all need to educate ourselves about something. School can be very expensive and is not always an option for some, whether they have never been or are considering going again. While, in my opinion, nothing can replace the traditional classroom experience, I have found a few tools that have satisfied my need to continue my education post-grad. Did I mention they are all apps and most of them are free?
The 4 Apps
Some of these apps may remind you of the classroom, some at first glance may not seem like they could be useful in continuing your education, but all have helped me either build my skills or learn something new. All of these are free in most areas while a few of them have some costs associated with them if you want to get the best experience from them. Now let’s get into these apps…
Udemy
Udemy was created in 2010 and currently offers over 100,000 different courses including finances, coding, logo design, and writing just to name a few. It is my favorite app so far that helps you continue your education. I’ve taken several classes so far and I’ve known about this website for only less than a year. It’s free to sign up and there are free classes available, as well as ones that have a fee. What’s great about this site is they have incredible sales quite frequently. You can sign up for a class valued at over $100 and pay only $11 during some of these sales!
When you enroll in a class you’ll see that there are video lectures, quizzes at the end of each section, a resources section where you can download any resources the professor provides, and a FAQ section where you can ask any questions you may have, get answers and connect with the professor and other students. I’m currently in the middle of an SEO class and have learned so much already and I’m not even halfway through.
Podcasts
Another free app that helps you continue your dictation post-grad can be found by listening to podcasts. You can do this through many different apps these days as well. I was a little late getting into the podcasting world, and I wasn’t looking at it for education in the beginning. However, recently I have realized I have learned a lot from podcasts. I try to listen to at least one a day.
Through listening to a couple of different podcasts I have gained skills in productivity, mindset shifts, financing, social media, and blogging, and that’s only just a few examples! While podcasts are used for a lot more than education, with so many different topics out there I don’t think there is anything you cannot learn from listening to podcasts. You can start listening to podcasts for free by downloading any of these apps: Spotify, The Podcast App (iOS), and Google Podcasts to name a few.
YouTube
Lately I’ve been using YouTube for a lot more than dancing. So, I knew I needed to include it on my list of apps that help you continue your education. I’ve searched for topics like photography, hand lettering, cooking, and blogging on YouTube. When I used to be a distributor for a network marketing company, YouTube was where I accessed any extra training I wanted.
All this reinforcing the fact that YouTube is more than a place where you can watch music videos and funny cat videos. I’ve gotten some great education from YouTube videos. The introduction of YouTube Red changed the game for me. It is more than just ad-free videos, it allows you to download videos, so you can watch them offline. That membership does cost about $13 a month, but when you compare it to all that you can learn on this platform, with the convenience of the membership, it is well worth the price.
Feedly
Feedly is a free website/app that curates a feed of blogs you follow and puts their new posts in a feed for you. This is an easy way for you to stay updated on all your favorite blogs all in one place. You may be thinking that’s cool but how is that a free education tool?
Well I don’t know about you, but I have learned a lot from blogs. It’s the first place I have gone to when it comes to learning about a new hobby or if I need to know how to do a certain task. I follow so many blogs that it can be hard to stay updated on every one of them. With feedly all my favorites are in one place and I have even created folders to separate topics. Now I can stay updated so when I want more information about a certain topic, or a blogger comes out with a course I may be interested in, I can find it all in one app.
Do you use any of these free apps? Or do you have one I didn’t include on this list? I’d love to know your favorite way to continue your education, whether it’s listed here or not. Let’s continue this conversation in the comments or on Facebook!
