Courses To Take Online

So this week we're talking about finding courses to take online. I've been working my way through some of the options on LinkedIn Learning, also doing Memrise courses for Lang Belta and Mando'a (two conlangs) and I have previously completed Write Storybooks For Children. I'm no stranger to online courses, so I thought I'd share with you some of the things I've learned.

How do you go about finding courses to take online?

First think about what courses you want to do.

This is the most important step and it's something that I can't recommend enough. Don't just look for whatever sites are offering courses and then go through those until you find something you think you would like. Start out by thinking about what you want to be learning and studying.

For me this was Digital Marketing, SEO and Analytics. I realised I knew next to nothing about them and I was curious. I could broaden my knowledge while gaining skills that could only do well for me in the long run. I run this blog here and wanted to know if I was really making the most of it.

After you've worked out what you want to do look at which sites are offering courses in these areas. Popular sites include Futurelearn, Skillshare, Coursera, Udemy and LinkedIn Learning. Start out by looking at the reviews of these websites and the specific course reviews, look at the structure of the course. Is this something you could do?

But I've never done this before...

Up until I started Write Storybooks For Children neither had I. I was terrified. I had so many thoughts going around in my head.

• What if I procrastinate? I don't have solid deadlines like I did in school

• What if I miss things? I won't be around other learners

• How do you study at home? I don't have a teacher there with me

• What happens if I get things wrong? I don't have people looking over my work

Some of these I was wrong about and the others I was more worried about than I should have been. I did procrastinate but I then gave myself a school like structure to my day which helped me to put off studying less. For points two and four, there's online study groups for some of the courses, sections for Q&A or even discord groups of students you can ask. The third point is something I want to expand on more:

How do you study at home though?

First I watch the relevant videos on the course. I make notes as the video plays, then read the transcript to make sure I haven't missed any important points or keywords. After this I highlight my notes (blue is headings/ changing topics, purple is definitions, red is important information like < b > is how you make something bold, green is important information more akin to examples or smaller details), and take the time to really understand all of these notes I've made. Then I take what I'm learning and make a few notes about the practical applications.

This is a system that works for me. I combined taking notes from the videos, highlighting helps me to work out which part of my notes refer to what since I'm handwriting them and I can't go back and edit like I would using my computer.

My notes if I was taking them on a computer would be more organised by TOPIC - DEFINITIONS - IMPORTANT INFO - CASE STUDY/ PRACTICAL EXAMPLES. This is hard to do when watching multiple videos and writing notes by hand however.

Studying at home is different because I'm not in a classroom setting, I'm somewhere that's comfortable and my own space. So, taking inspiration from my "bedroom = just for sleep" idea, I set aside my desk to be the place I studied. I only sit there to study and I don't do relaxing things there. If I'm at my desk I'm studying. This helped me establish clear boundaries at home and make getting myself to focus on studying easier.

Conclusion

I adore using online courses to learn and I've been going with a couple recently which have helped me to have more of a structure to my day (being in lockdown has really thrown off my normal schedules) which in turn has helped reduce anxiety and fears about wasting my days.

Using LinkedIn Learning to explore SEO and Digital Marketing has been incredible and something I would highly recommend if you're looking for something to do with your time and want the option of learning how and when you want.

Online courses and learning can be difficult to start with, but they are so beneficial. You can work around your schedules, learn when you want to and will be focused, you can pause at any point to go grab another cup of coffee. Join online study groups and discussions about your chosen subject area to get the seminar experience and be able to talk about what you're learning.

Don't forget to check out websites like Skillshare, Futurelearn and Udemy.

Introducing Write An Essay With Me

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting a series of blog posts about writing an essay from start to finish. You can follow along and by the end you'll have learned skills like researching, writing introductions and conclusions, writing body paragraphs and how to get control of that bibliography.

These posts will be throughout the rest of March and April so stay tuned for those. Follow me here to make sure you don't miss out

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Hey! Tara here and thanks for checking out my blog. I update every Tuesday with posts about studying tips, advice and talk about productivity and organisation too. If you want to keep up to date with my latest blog posts I’d love it if you subscribed to this blog.