Udacity is the commercial provider of online courses. Udacity orginally was offering university-style-made courses but now focuses more on vocational courses for professionals (mainly connected to digital technology).
What type of content is offered?
Udacity offfers single courses and nanodegrees (which are a couple of courses linked together in programme). How does it look when it comes to prices?
- Courses (50-300$)
A single course is open for everyone (only a certification is paid).
- Nanodegrees
There are 2 types of programs on Udacity: stand-alone courses and nanodegrees. If you are a newbie, you can try to take a single course in order to examinate the learning environment. Courses content is always online – easy to access and repeat the material. Nanodegree contain a few courses (usually made in partnership with commercial company). Its main big idea is to give the participant a set of skills and make them ready for a new proffesional challenge.
Udacity provides courses made with some of the most well-known brands like Google or Microsoft. This is definitely some strong argument for taking a course here. You can find a full catalog of courses here.
How to use it?
This post soon will be updated with links to my tutorials. Stay tuned.
Pros and cons:
Pros:
- Content is created only by the highest class specialists connected with educational institutes,
- You can attend every course for free,
- You can complete a nanodegree which will help you to get ready for a new proffesional challenge,
- Shareable certificates,
- Financial aid available for the best students,
- Very plesant and perfectly designed interface,
- Mobile app for iOS and Android (where you can download courses and learn offline).
Cons:
- Certificates can be expensive,
- Prices of Nanodegrees are crafted only for first-world countries,
- There is no use of this service for some less-skilled users.
- Language support is extremely limited.
Conclusions and mark:
Udacity is a great MOOC service, especially when you’re a student or a profesional looking for new skills. Nanodegrees are definitely something interesting to take (Udacity has a support from some of well-known companies in the high tech world).
In one sentence: I would recommend using Udacity to learn a new profesional skill or take a Nanodegree.