I am fascinated by online learning platforms that are built for the digital age. Skillshare is a platform that enables users to pickup and learn any sort of niche creative skill like illustration, marketing, trend forecasting, photography, film, animation, and UI/UX design. It empowers not only students to learn on the platform, but also teachers and instructors, who can upload any course of interest to the platform. Because it does attempt to attract the 99% of educators and instructors, classes on the platform can be rather hit or miss and the quality varies course by course. This renders it atypical to MasterClass, Outlier, and Khan Academy, which are way more curated in nature. There appears to be more quality assurance in the aforementioned platforms. However, that doesn’t always render weakness, but instead produces a diversity of content that can target and reach a broad swath of producers and users. I consider this to be an advantage in its own unique way. Each instructor can be an expert in their own niche area, and can also inspire someone to pick up a new skill.
