skillshare review

Skillshare Review

Whether you are a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you constantly need to upskill yourself to maintain your competitive edge and keep up with the pace at which things are changing in the world in general. In particular, for professionals in any field, it’s imperative to regularly upgrade their certifications and learn new tools to stay relevant and on top of their game. It takes no time for a skill to become redundant these days but thankfully, it’s also never been easier or faster to effectively learn a new critical skill or to really take your knowledge to the next level. The best online course platforms like Skillshare can really change your life for the better and as we’ll see in this Skillshare review, it’s an enjoyable, flexible and highly effective experience!

In the past, it wasn’t always easy to lean new skills or upgrade your current ones. Most people had neither the time nor the resources, to learn new skills. Not everyone can afford to pay thousands of dollars on learning digital marketing or that new automation tool. On the same note, not a lot of people can take enough time out to attend full-time schools to attain degrees and learn new courses. As the demand for updated professionals is increasing, so is the supply of services that fulfill those demands. You might want to learn how to cook like a chef or learn crochet, a college student who wants to earn some pocket money doing freelance writing or marketing work or an experienced professional seeking a real upgrade to your skills in a particular domain to deliver better results. Whichever the case is, you probably do not have the time and money to attend a business school or a professional school to attain these skills.

Herein enter the learning platforms of today, like Skillshare, Coursera, Udemy, UpGrad, and more. There are some distinct differences between every platform, but all of these are trying to provide a flexible and convenient solution to individuals who want to learn without interrupting their normal routine and also without breaking the bank.

In this article, we’ll talk about one of the most popular online learning platforms, Skillshare. This Skillshare review will tell everything there is to know about the platform, the courses offered, the pricing and the validity and the quality of their courses.

What is Skillshare?

Skillshare is an online learning platform that offers a multitude of courses in varied domains. It works as an online learning community where students and instructors can interact as well. The platform allows teachers from all over the world to upload classes on the subject or skill of their interest and expertise which in turn are used by students to learn new things. Not only can the students access the course modules and video lectures but they also get to work on live projects and case studies that are then updated on the project sections of the course.

The topics for the classes can be anything from designing, writing, painting to technical skills like tech tools. There are photography, cooking, DIY crafts, fashion, music and even gaming classes. Anyone can register on the platform as a student. Teachers are from all parts of the world. As long as you have a skill to share, you can be a part of the Skillshare teachers community. With millions of students on the platform and over 19,000 courses, Skillshare is one of the largest online learning community platforms.

The objective of the platform is to enable people all over the world to learn whatever they want to without bearing the brunt of heavy costs. Most of the courses are free to enroll in, all you have to do is register.

How Does Skillshare Work?

Unlike most other online learning platforms that offer massive online open courses (MOOCs), Skillshare offers more than just course training. It’s an interactive platform which encourages student collaboration and networking through coursework like team projects and case studies. The objective is to teach students real-world skills, which cannot be learnt just by watching course lectures. There has to be practical work as well, which the courses on Skillshare provide.

The platform promotes collaborative and application-oriented learning by facilitating project-based courses by the teachers and interactive sessions. The projects worked upon by the students are then posted to the project gallery of the course which can be viewed by other students as well. To encourage participation, the platform also allows students to interact with each other by commenting on each other’s project work on the discussion board, provide feedback, collaborate on the project through video lectures, among other things.

To become an instructor on Skillshare, all you need to do is create and publish a class on any real-world skill that you can teach expertly. Anyone from around the world can register for free to be a student and access those classes. There are diverse mediums of content that the platform allows the students to consume. This way, an expert gets to impart his knowledge while an eager student gets to learn a new skill.

What Are the Benefits of Skillshare?

For someone who has significant budget constraints and cannot leave home to attend a school to learn something, Skillshare is an excellent alternative to learn new skills. With its wide variety of courses, they have something for everyone, no matter what your objectives might be, personal or professional. Are you a content writer seeking skills in social media marketing? There is a course for that. Are you a startup founder looking to hone your entrepreneurial skills? Learn from an experienced entrepreneur! Are you a hobby cook wanting to up your game and learn some complex cooking? Here comes a course that will make you a chef.

The platform is a real-time alternative to all practical skills in life. The lessons are not one-on-one since the objective to promote collaborative learning, but that works in favor of the students since they get to network with people from all over the world and find new opportunities. You never know what might turn the tide, after all.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of the platform as a whole:

  • Free to Use — The biggest benefit of the platform is that it’s free to use by students from every corner of the world, eliminating the problem of shelling out big bucks for high-quality education.
  • Shared Learning — Another benefit that makes this a preferred platform is that diligently promotes interactive learning and teamwork by giving access to project-based courses and the freedom to give feedback to each other through the discussion forum.
  • Easy to Create Classes — For anyone looking to register as a teacher on the platform, it’s as easy as hitting the ‘create a class’ button. The platform offers a complete guide on how to create and publish your course on Skillshare so that it can have maximum impact.
  • A Good Way to Earn Money — Once you have created your classes, you also have the option to put them up for paid viewing through which you can earn decent money as a teacher. The more the students enrol, the more money you earn.
  • Team Enrollment — The best feature for a small business looking to upskill their employees, Skillshare allows your organization to register an entire team for a course and provides you with access to usage reporting that lets you see the progress of each team member.
  • Offline Viewing — In case you register for the paid version, you can also access the course materials offline. However, this feature is only available for premium members.
  • Huge Catalog of Courses — The courses on the platform are extremely varied, offering students plenty of choices. All courses offer high-quality teaching and learning environment.
  • Networking — With the discussion forum and other collaborative features, the platforms a great chance to network with other students from different parts of the world and open up new possibilities.
  • Paid Work for Teachers — As a teacher, you can also earn compensation by the way of promoting your classes for a fee that every student needs to pay to enrol in your course.
  • Promotion Tools — There are guides for teachers to help them in promoting their courses so that they can be reached to the right set of students and have a wider reach too.
  • Feedback — Students are allowed to share feedback on each other’s work that promotes interactive learning and also allows for better learning.

Overall, there are a lot of benefits of registering with Skillshare. The features and tools inbuilt in the platform are intended to deliver a high-quality learning environment while also recognizing the hard work of the teachers in creating classes.

Skillshare Pricing Structure

Skillshare offers two versions of learning:

  • Skillshare Basic
  • Skillshare Premium

As the names suggest, Skillshare Basic is the basic version while the Skillshare Premium is a paid version with more premium offerings. The difference lies in the number of courses that are accessible for free and other convenient features like offline viewing that are only available on Skillshare Premium.

Skillshare Basic

Skillshare Basic is the free version of the online learning platform. It offers:

  • Access to around 2,000 courses along with their videos
  • Access to community learning through the discussion forum and collaborative projects
  • Access to the Skillshare mobile app

Essentially, Skillshare basic offers a complete package barring access to premium courses and some paid features.

Skillshare Premium

This is the paid version of the platform. Skillshare review includes the features of both versions offered by it. There are three plans under the Skillshare Premium version.

  • Monthly: This costs $8.73 per month and is billed monthly
  • Annual: This costs $5.23 per month and is billed annually at $63, offering 40% savings
  • Teams: This is billed annually and charged per student

The Skillshare Premium version has the following advantages:

  • Unlimited access to over 30,000 classes
  • Easy download to your smartphones
  • Offline viewing access
  • No ads to interrupt the videos
  • Several perks like discount vouchers of various sites like Shutterstock, Squarespace and more

The portal also offers to students who want to purchase the premium membership but lack complete funds. The membership amount paid by students funds the royalty that’s paid to the teachers as well as the scholarships rolled out to students on need basis.

Skillshare Courses

There are four umbrella categories under which courses are offered on Skillshare. The categories are:

  • Lifestyle
  • Creative
  • Business
  • Technology

Under each category, there are a wide variety of courses to be explored, ranging over 30,000 courses. The course list covers modern skills like data science, product development, business analytics and many more. There is a course for each skill that a student can think of, including crafts and culinary under lifestyle. Under the ‘Creative’ category, some of the course subjects include animation, film production, graphic design, illustration, writing, photography, UI/UX design, etc. Under the ‘Business’ category, there are courses that cover accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, leadership, management, productivity, etc. The ‘Technology’ category covers data science, web development, product development and mobile development.

With such a huge catalog of courses, there is no dearth of skills that a student can learn. New courses keep getting updated on the portal as well. These courses are taught by professionals and experts from all over the world including serial entrepreneurs, academicians and creative people.

There is a separate section for student projects wherein all projects worked upon by the students are displayed after completion. The platform also has a section on recommended classes featuring the best collection at the time.

With paid memberships, Skillshare offers a free trial period for a month which can be canceled at any time.


Final Thoughts on Skillshare

Platforms like Skillshare help immensely in aiding students from far and wide in accessing affordable learning tools from experts. For professionals that are just entering the industry as fresh graduates and want to learn to add on skills to give themselves an additional advantage over their peers, Skillshare can prove to be a boon by allowing them to study the best courses from the comfort of their home and without taking on student debt.

Even for people who have serious hobbies like photography, cooking, crafts, etc., Skillshare is one of the best platforms to register on and upgrade their skill set. This Skillshare review should have provided you with enough information to make a decision. So, go on, register for free and learn a new skill!

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