The benefits of online learning and why you should do it

Expand your horizons

When you decide to learn something new your knowledge on a particular topic expands as well as your experience, and interest in the topic.

Having a better understanding can make you feel empowered. Learning a new skill can also increase your opportunities for new jobs. Whether it be a promotion in your current place of work or if your goal is to enter a new role which you’ve had no previous experience in.

Learn new skills

There are so many different skills you can learn online now from practical to academic, with courses available in so many subjects, topics, and industries.

Whatever you want your next career move to be, there will be something out there for you.

If you feel like you’re not a very academic person, you could complete an online course which could lead you into a practical role such as cleaning, health and safety or bartending. If you've no previous experience in a role like this, having a completed course on your CV can be a big help.

You might already have experience in a particular role but completing a course will mean you could learn extra skills to add to the ones you already have.

Alternatively, you could be someone with a degree who has a professional job, but you still might want to add more to your skill set. No matter what your position in life is, there is always plenty of room to learn more.

Sharpen your skills

You might find that you already have some knowledge or experience of a particular topic, but you might only have a had a brief experience with it before. Or you might find that you need to know about a subject that you haven’t studied for a really long time or maybe you’re going back to a type of job role that you haven’t done for a while so you could be in need of a refresher.

Doing this online is the perfect way to bring yourself up to speed in a quick and easy way.

Work in your own time, at your own pace

The benefits of working online and being able to work at your own pace mean that you can often begin courses whenever you like, and you don’t have to wait for a specific date for a program to begin.

You can also complete it at your own leisure, from whatever location you’re in, as long as the course doesn’t have specific deadlines. Even if there are deadlines, you will usually have plenty of time to meet them.

This way you can easily fit your course in around your other commitments. You don’t have to be in one fixed place, this will also save you time and money as you won’t have to commute to an institution.

You can revisit content

With the content being online in one place, you can read it and reread it if you want to or even print it out to keep for future reference. When you’re attending courses in person, you might be sent the PowerPoint from the class but a lot of note-taking is required.

With online learning, the resources are all there for you already, so you can look back

Accessibility

The majority of people have an internet connection these days. As long as you have internet, you will usually need a laptop too, but you could get by with a tablet or smartphone, depending on the course, you will have what you need to complete a course online.

And of course, with doing courses remotely, you can generally complete them at your own pace and at times that suit you best. This level of flexibility will give people the chance to learn who might not have been able to otherwise due to for example health problems, disabilities or if other commitments wouldn’t allow.

You can find your own study-life balance that works for you.

Age and experience are not a barrier

No matter what you age is, your level of experience or what academic level you are, there will be courses online that are useful to you. Whether you’re an absolute beginner or wanting to take degree level or even post-graduate level course or anything in between.

There are a variety of materials to suit all learning styles - audio, video, reading, practical tasks, forums 

Whatever learning style suits you best there’s something to suit all needs.

If you’re a visual learner, you learn best by looking at diagrams, charts, maps, graphs and other visual aids. Auditory learners take in information best by listening so talking with others, having a discussion or doing group activities help. You can still find this with online learning as some will have forums where you can discuss tasks with others on the course. If you’re a kinaesthetic learner you learn through hands on experience, practical tasks and simulations. This could be more challenging online, but course providers will find a way to include people who learn this way. Other people learn best through reading and writing.

It might be necessary to research different courses once you’ve decided what you want to learn about, to make sure they can meet your needs when it comes to learning styles.

Develop self-motivation and self-discipline

Completing a course online and not having a physical class to go to means you can reap all of the benefits of not having to be in a certain pace at a certain time. But there can be a disadvantage to this, you have to make sure you’re dedicating enough time to study as you need to be able to succeed.

Mastering self-motivation and self-discipline are excellent skills to have, and if you acquire these through learning online, these are 2 more skills you will have to add to your CV.

Lots of them are FREE!

Some university courses are completely online, some whole universities are online only, but of course from these providers they can sometimes be expensive as university degrees will always come with a fee. However there are many online which only come at a small cost, and plenty of others which are free.

If you have an account with redwigwam, you can take advantage of the e-learning we offer. Why not sign up now to learn new skills with us, completely free!