Nowadays, there are a number of excellent eLearning platforms that exist purely to connect learners with experts who are happy to share their skills. Among the most popular of these are Udemy and Skillshare which, for all their differences, seek to achieve the same goal.
You can browse thousands of different courses on each of these platforms, and typically find several to cover every aspect of common hobbies. Those wanting to learn basic illustration, for example, can choose from a diverse array of teachers and courses teaching everything from digital illustration to art journaling and draughtsmanship.
Everyone learns in a different way, and eLearning courses are designed to be followed along at your own pace. Many report that having access to a structured curriculum, including homework, projects and Q&A feedback, was instrumental in helping them get to grips with their chosen subject or interest.
Stick to Trusted Resources
The internet is home to an incredible store of information, but if you don’t approach its use in the correct way then this can quickly become as much of a curse as a blessing. This is because there’s very little in the way of checks and balances dictating who can put out information on a given subject online. It is quite different from, say, a published book which normally must go through rigorous editing and fact-checking by the publishers in question before its release.
While it’s amazing that you can find helpful guides and tips on just about anything online for free, you can save yourself a lot of wasted effort if you take steps to vet your sources. Not all bad information is harmful, of course, but sometimes it can lead to you picking up bad habits that you may need to unlearn further down the line.
It is for this reason that it’s best practice to identify platforms and organisations that are known to be leaders in the sector your hobby belongs to. For example, if in learning to play the classic table game of roulette you want to get an understanding of the roulette board layout in detail, you would be better off availing yourself of the free resources on this subject put out by industry mainstay PokerStars Casino over an unverified third party.
Likewise, budding gardeners – pun intended – can make use of the excellent guides provided by the Royal Horticultural Society to get a head start on everything from growing veg to telling apart your perennials from your seasonals.
See What YouTube Has to Offer
YouTube is an amazing resource for learners of all subjects as visual demonstrations often go much further in helping people pick up skills than text instructions alone are able to. What’s more, many YouTube creators and channels are home to vibrant communities of hobbyists who are eager to connect with likeminded individuals and trade tips and tricks.
Simply fire up YouTube and enter your hobby into the search bar; perhaps experiment with adding further relevant keywords such as ‘guide’, ‘how to’ or ‘lessons’, and the algorithm will do the rest.
Seek Out One-to-One
Certain hobbies, due to their complex or precise nature, require more hands-on tuition. A great example of this is learning how to play a musical instrument. Fortunately, the internet enables you to easily find and set up lessons with a skilled tutor in your chosen subject.
There are a number of platforms dedicated to this goal, such as TutorHunt and MyTutor. On these you will find many teachers who are willing to impart their wisdom and guide you over video conferencing software like Zoom, all for very competitive rates.
