Using Udemy for Homeschool Electives
Udemy is an online course platform. As of 2020, they have 35 million students, 157,000 courses, 57,000 instructors, and have had over 400 million course enrollments. Two-thirds of the teachers are outside of the US. Needless to say, you can find a course in just about anything you would like to learn.
Classes are conducted a variety of different ways because it is up to each instructor as to how they want to construct their class. They may be live, a video, Powerpoint presentations, PDF's or Zip files. Some have discussion boards, and some don't.
There are some free classes on Udemy, but most are offered at a fee. Some are expensive, but many are reasonable, though. For example, students that are into coding for gaming could take a five-and-a-half hour class in "Learning to Create Pixel Art for Gaming" for $49.99. It has 48 lectures included. Or, you could purchase 10 simple art lessons for kids for $24.99.
Udemy has so much to offer, that in all honesty, the offerings can seem overwhelming. They have a filter feature on their site to help you narrow your search, but you may still feel like you are "drowning in choices".
Another drawback is that if you like live classes, it is hard to find them among all the "pre-taped" offerings because they don't have a filter for that choice. We spent a couple hours trying to find one with no success, even when typing "Live class" in the search bar.
Udemy and Outschool are competitors, with the difference being that Outschool only offers classes for those 18 and younger, and Udemy's classes are for anyone. Additionally, Outschool offers quite a lot of live classes, and they are easy to find. However, there is a place for both in homeschool, and parents are encouraged to research both platforms for classes that fit their student's needs.
Udemy displays reviews from other students taking each class, so parents can get a good sense of the value of a class before purchasing. Parents are encouraged to read the reviews before hitting that "Buy Now" button.
Many classes offer a "Certificate of Completion" once a student finishes a class. However, in most cases, instructors do not do any evaluations to determine if the student learned the material. So, it is up to the parent to monitor the student.
Udemy is not recommended as a replacement for homeschool curriculums for main classes because their classes do not contain the necessary content to be considered a full subject curriculum. Udemy classes should only be used in addition to a regular homeschool curriculum for a subject, as something extra to give the student more educational value for a subject. Or, they can be used for electives.
You can access Udemy's website at www.udemy.com.
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