Lynda.com is an online educational site for coders with a vast array of multimedia learning experiences. Around for 20 years now, Lynda serves more than 10,000 businesses and provides lessons in five languages. They are a go to for business training as well as individuals. Their reach is global, with students from around the world using the site to increase their skills and learn new things.
Possibly the best site of its kind, Lynda.com allows students a way to learn coding from instructors through a huge library of video content. Students can work at their own pace. Unlike Udemy.com or other sites there is not a per-video or per-course charge. For one subscription fee, students have unrestricted access to as much content as they can take in for the month.
Additional resources are often included, including worksheets and other instructional materials. Lynda is a one-stop place to go to for learning tech skills and techniques in a wide variety of technical disciplines. Beyond that, they also offer business, money management, and other advanced courses. For the purposes of our review, we will focus on the technical and coding aspects of Lynda’s educational offering.
The signup process at Lynda is quick and easy, and allows you to start creating playlists of your desired training right off the bat. There is a credit card requirement for even the ten-day trial. Be advised that if you forget to cancel within that ten days you will be charged.
Once you have created an account, Lynda will help you find training based on your areas of interest. You are greeted with a long menu of choices, which is made of drill-down sections. You select the areas that you would like to learn from. Selections here will create a list of recommended coursework later.
During the initial setup, Lynda will show you some of its most popular courses as you go, letting you know that expert training is at hand. The most requested and relevant courses are extremely easy to find. to view more of what we described, visit the official site.
Recommended courses appear with the course title and a preview image, as well as date of creation. This information is important especially in the tech sector as while some things like C programming will not change a whole lot, other skills become obsolete quickly. Be sure to pay heed to creation date and the dates of recent updates. they teach other tutorials as we saw like various php frameworks, jquery, java and more.
A course on Objective C from several years back may not include some of the more relevant updates that help it integrate seamlessly with iOS applications. Also, new extensions are coming out all the time in the realm of web development, so the fresher the content the more likely it is to be useful and not outdated.
Videos
Lynda.com boasts some of the best video quality of any online instructor. The videos are high resolution and so the large video player does not detract from the sharpness of the image. The video player itself has tabs beneath that allow you to access details of the course, the video transcript, frequently asked questions, and notes you have taken.
The Transcript tab will allow you to see the full text of the video, and it highlights the words as the video goes on so you can follow along in the text. This is a huge feature not only for those who have difficulty following what the instructor says. It is also an important accessibility tool for those who are hard of hearing or who use assistive technology to help them with their learning path.
The people who present the videos are professional, informative, and it is obvious that they are comfortable speaking with the camera present so you get the most out of each video. As you watch videos, you can keep track of what you have watched and what you intend to watch in the playlist. Finished courses are denoted with an eye icon so you can easily track your progress.
Courses
Hundreds of courses and over ten thousand videos exist for those in the programming track. These cover such topics as Web development and programming as well as hard programming. Others begin at programming foundations and algorithms and data structures. Students can take courses in user interface design, mobile app development, and just about any course you can think of.
An interesting feature is that some courses also feature experts weighing in with opinions on the topics being presented. These experts are from the heart of the industry and not just education. While Lynda may not offer the interactivity of other sites, it makes up for it with a much larger selection of courses from which to choose and a great breadth and depth of knowledge. Also, unlike some of the marketplace and social choices for videos, the quality of Lynda’s offerings is consistent from video to video in a much greater fashion. On sites where the instructor creates their own course content, the quality can vary greatly.
Certificates
Lynda.com offers certificates of completion for courses that have been finished. This does not translate directly to a resume, but gives one a sense of accomplishment and is a tangible tool which can be used if your employer offers a tuition or education reimbursement program. The certificates give proof that you have completed continuing education in the field of choice.
Why Lynda?
There are other ways to get similar online content, such as the venerable YouTube and dedicated online learning sites such as Khan Academy which compiles free learning material. However, the delivery system for Lynda.com is more focused than either of the above. Also, the material at Lynda is vetted and more prescient for the topics at hand.
The other video sites have material dedicated to various topics and don’t focus specifically on coding. YouTube is hardly a topical master, and Khan Academy was originally developed as a core learning site in hard academia. Therefore, it doesn’t have as strong of an offering in coding and development.
Based on their strengths, the prices for Lynda’s subscription plans are completely reasonable. If you need a course in a specific technical topic, Lynda has a lineup of specific courses for it. With other sites, you will need to search and hope for the best.