Blog Contributor: Luke Loftin
Need to learn some new skills but don’t want your wallet to suffer? You don’t need to save up all of your change for a year to learn something. Everything is already online. You just need to know where to look.
Here’s how to reduce the costs of learning and training with eLearning.
Option 1: Learn Only What You Need to Learn
Often times many people jump headfirst into learning something when they don’t need to. It’s a shame because, in addition to losing money or going into debt, they’re also losing time. If you want to cut costs on eLearning, don’t think you need to learn everything there is to know right here and now. Ask any teacher, and he or she will tell you that the best way to learn something new is when you have an actual need for the knowledge, or when the knowledge is clearly relevant to what you need.
Learn each skill as you have a need for it. This all but guarantees that you will remember what you learn.
Throw yourself 100% at a new subject, and the most likely thing to happen is you will only remember the big things, and all the little intricate details will be lost.
So learn one skill at a time as the subject material becomes more relevant to your work, and you will save yourself money as well as time.
Option 2: Find Forums Dedicated to What You’re Learning
If there’s one thing you need to learn and learn fast, it’s that you are not the first person to have a particular problem or question. Thousands of people, like you, have already gone online and asked your question for you.
Get comfortable with forums as fast as you can by becoming a member and reading through old threads. It’s practically a certainty that your query is floating around the web many times over. Someone’s already asked your question and already received sage advice.
Note: Though forums are great places for learning new skills and getting answers to your questions, they can be abrasive if you ask a question that has already been asked and answered. So before you ask anything, make sure it hasn’t been answered in full already. Members hate it when new account holders ask a question that has already been covered in depth because the person didn’t feel like checking old threads.
Option 3: Learn by Seeing via Youtube
If you learn best by watching others do it, here again, you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for the master course online. Someone, undoubtedly, has already posted a video online explaining the skill. It may be shot by someone with an old smartphone, where the picture and sound quality will leave you squinting and turning your head, but the answer is very likely on Youtube.
If you still have a question after watching, many Youtube teachers are extremely responsive. Don’t be afraid to ask them a question in the comments section of the video. Either he or she will respond directly to you, or someone else who knows the answer will.
It’s even quite possible you’ll find an entire video tutorial series on Youtube. Some people do all of their learning via Youtube. It’s understandable why because it works.
The hang-up for most people going this route is that they’ll feel it’s not professional enough. You have to get rid of this idea of perfection. No matter how much of a professional someone may be, we’re all just people. Don’t be afraid to learn from people like you.
Option 4: Find and Contact a Professional
There are many bad things about the internet these days, but one thing that’s emerged lately is a coalescing of mentors and professionals in spaces dedicated to their craft (a great example is Bigger Pockets). Find where they’re going to talk and engage one another online, and contact each one of them individually until one of them responds to you. Befriend them and ask questions. Very few people like to hoard knowledge.
If you meet and talk to successful people, most of them have one thing in common: they believe there’s enough wealth for everyone and they believe that the world is a place of abundance. They will share what they’ve learned with you because they will not be threatened by your ambition. You just have to not be afraid to put yourself out there.
Option 5: Find an Ebook on Amazon
There are a lot of educational ebooks online, and many of them are on Amazon for just a few bucks. Ebooks aren’t cheap because the knowledge in them is second-rate, they’re cheap because they’re entirely digital.
If you don’t know, the ebook market is going through a renaissance right now. Many writers are going the ebook route because it’s far easier than getting a book picked up by a publisher. Plus, anyone can do it. Artists and professionals alike are producing great content through ebooks. If you want to learn something cheaply, an ebook should be part of your learning strategy.
Of course, not all ebooks are created equally, so you’ll want to stick to highly rated ones, as well as read through the comments to make sure everything is legit and that the comments are logical. Many ebook writers will buy a competitor’s book only to trash it so other people will buy theirs. Sad but true.
That said, don't be afraid to buy one that hasn’t been reviewed or rated yet. The best-selling ebooks may just sell well because the author understands marketing. The best writers in the world don’t understand a single thing about marketing. Read through a sample and see if it warrants your money and attention.
With the Internet, You Can Learn Anything You Want
It may not be as simple as typing your question into Google, but it’s still pretty simple. Look around. The web is a big place. You’ll be surprised at what you can learn without spending thousands of dollars.
About the Author: Luke Loftin is a blog writer and an award-winning indie filmmaker. When he isn’t writing about himself, he specializes in finance and health, blogging about all sorts of topics including credit cards, personal loans, bank accounts, and the digestive system. He currently writes for LeadsMarket among other sites, and his articles are scattered all across the information superhighway. You can find him on LinkedIn.
