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Skillshare
Skillshare is an online learning community which offers skills training across an enormous range of courses, including creative arts, business, technology, and lifestyle. Since its introduction in 2010, it has grown rapidly, with millions of students and thousands of classes taught by industry professionals. Skillshare has taken an interactive approach to learning, using the principle of project-based learning; this translates that the student is actively engaging with the information, as opposed to mere consumption.
The Structure of Skillshare
Course Format
Courses on Skillshare are divided into video lessons that last for a few minutes or even hours. Each class is connected through a core project that a student can complete based on the lessons learned. This mode of learning helps reinforce knowledge and motivates people to put their newly acquired skills into practice right away.
Class Categories
Skillshare courses fall under a number of categories, including:
Creative Arts: Graphic design, illustration, photography, writing, music production.
Business: Entrepreneurship, marketing, and finance.
Technology: Coding, web development, and software skills.
Lifestyle: Health, productivity, and personal development.
This diversity allows learners to explore several areas of interest and expand their skill sets.
Enrollment and Membership
Skillshare functions on a freemium model, in which students can get access for free after registering with a free trial period for first-time users. Once the free trial is over, students can choose either a monthly or yearly subscription plan. This provides them with unlimited access to all the classes available to them. This is perfect for learners who would want to explore different topics without a focus on one course.
Benefits of Skillshare
Accessibility: This is one of the convenience skills because the learning can be done from anywhere, at any time as long as there is internet accessibility. The learner has their freedom to schedule their study time.
Different learning style: It caters for a variety of learning styles, because it involves a combination of video content, community interaction, and hands-on project skills.
Community Engagement: Skillshare fosters community among learners and educators. Learners can share projects, gain feedback, and communicate with other learners on the discussion board, enhancing the learning process.
Skilled Instructors: Many of its courses are taught by professionals and industry experts who introduce real-world experience and insights into classes.
Learner skill development: This project-based learning encourages learners to accumulate a portfolio of work, which they may use to present themselves to possible employers or clients.
Create and Teach on Skillshare
Furthermore, users can create and offer their classes on Skillshare. This feature allows professionals to share their skills while earning some money.
Become a Teacher
To become an instructor on Skillshare, one needs to apply through the platform. Once selected, instructors can create their own courses that are controlled for quality. Instructors are paid according to minutes watched by premium members, and this might be one avenue of potential revenue based on the popularity of the courses instructors create.
Promotion of instructors
To help teachers promote their classes, Skillshare provides them with a lot of tools and resources. Successful marketing directly relates to the success of a course. The instructor usually markets their class using social media, email marketing, and a personal network.
Skillshare vs. Other Learning Platforms
Even though Skillshare is one of the most popular online learning platforms, there is a need to compare it with other platforms, such as Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning.
Course Format: Skillshare focuses on creativity with working projects as against Coursera, in which education-credited courses are provided with universities in most cases.
Pricing Model: Considering Udemy's pay-per-course model, Skillshare takes up the subscription-based model for its users.
Community Interaction: As community-centric, there is more engagement through project sharing in Skillshare. Hence, a collaborative kind of learning space.
Challenges and Criticisms
While Skillshare has several advantages, it also comes with its disadvantages and criticisms. These are as follows:
Quality Control: Because of the thousands of courses present in the site, not one can qualify to be branded a quality learning material. Such conditions may make it hard for some learners to decide what are the best classes to take.
Overwhelming Options: There is such a high number of courses that it might just become overwhelming for the learners trying to identify the suitable classes.
Depth is somewhat limited because, although project-based learning is something excellent by itself, users can seek more depth in theoretical knowledge and that's not always inside the courses of Skillshare.
Conclusion
Skillshare is a very essential tool for individuals who want to develop their skills and learn something new. Its project-based approach, variety of courses, and engagement with the community are what make it so attractive to lifelong learners.
As with any learning platform, there is so much to take into account for an interested user in determining if Skillshare will be a good fit for them. Be it starting something one likes doing or being a professional who wishes to upskill, Skillshare will help in the learning process.