Published by: Julia
If you are scratching your head wondering what to buy someone as a gift..look no further. Online courses are the answer regardless of who you are buying for.
Here are 7 reasons online courses make for great presents. Plus, a head´s up about how to buy them for the lowest possible price.
Online courses are the gifts that keep on giving
In most cases, years after you have given this kind of gift, the person you gave it to can go on watching and enjoying it.
Even if you buy the kind that only gives them access for a year, the person you gifted the course to will still be able to benefit from the knowledge they gleaned.
Online courses open up a world of learning that anyone can access
If you were to buy someone an annual pass to somewhere like CreativeLive or Masterclass.com, they can take as many courses as they want. They can take two or three per week, meaning that effectively you gave them the gift of hundreds instead of just one course.
It is easy to tailor the gift to the person you are giving to
The list of things they could learn is a long one. There are courses for..
- Students studying for exams and degrees
- Crafters and hobbyists that want to learn more
- Sports, music, and film fans who want to go behind the scenes and learn from their favorite stars
- People who want to learn a new skill to improve their work prospects
- Anyone who is struggling to overcome personal problems
- Fitness fans and people who want to improve their sporting prowess
They represent incredible value for money
If you buy the online passes which most online learning platforms provide, you get access to an incredibly long list. Which means that you actually end up paying only a few dollars for each course.
Even if you opt to buy individual courses, `provided you shop around or use guides like ours, you can buy a fantastic course, without having to pay a fortune to do so. Often, it is possible to get a significant discount, especially if you buy just before the major holidays.
The experts that create the CreativeLive courses have some input when it comes to pricing. As a result, you will find individual courses being offered at a discount, virtually year-round.
On top of the 2 or 3 annual sales when the Creative Pass is offered at a discount. Both Masterclass and Coursera also do this. Masterclass´is especially good at doing this. Around Christmas, they often offer the chance to buy an all-access pass for yourself, then throw in the 2nd pass for free. So, potentially you can give a Masterclass.com all access to 2 instead of 1 person for the same price.
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Online courses are a highly effective way to learn
Numerous studies show that learning at your own pace is one of the most effective ways to learn. When a group of researchers from MIT, Harvard, and Tsinghua University did a test to find out how much people actually learned they were amazed by the results. Everyone improved their knowledge of a subject. Even those that had no familiarity with the subject before taking the engineering course they chose came away with an improved understanding. In fact, the results were so good that MIT is now considering incorporating online learning into some of their courses.
So, if online courses are good enough for the world´s top universities, you can bet that they are a valuable and effective learning resource. If you go to Coursera you will notice that virtually all of their courses have been created by universities, including ones like Harvard and Yale.
See Related Article: Giving Online Courses as Presents – How to Get it Right
The support you get is usually excellent
It never ceases to amaze me how much help and support students get. All of the platforms are really good at this, they provide numerous ways to ask questions that fellow students, and often the course provider, will then answer.
I´ve personally found this to be incredibly valuable. In particular, when taking educational courses like those offered by Coursera.
See Related Article: Online Courses That Would Make Great Gifts
They can be accessed from anywhere
These days most people have access to the web practically wherever they are. So, when they receive an online course as a gift they can log in and enjoy it anytime, anywhere. Even someone who still has a slow internet connection can still learn in this way. It is still possible to download some of the courses that are available. Coursera and CreativeLive provide the ability to do this for most of their videos. With Masterclass.com access is limited to a selection of the videos and then only via their mobile app.
Where to find out more
If you are sold on the idea of buying online courses as gifts, click here, to gain an insight into the different kinds of online gifts that are available. As you will see, there are plenty of choices, so finding the perfect present has just got a whole lot easier.