If you are a small business owner, chances are great that there are skills that you could update that would make running your business easier and more profitable.  In the past, updating your skills and technical abilities might have required you to apply to a traditional bricks and mortar college or university, pay expensive tuition costs, and manage to juggle your schedule around work requirements and classroom attendance. Most people found the hassle of continuing education just too much to deal with.

Thankfully, the Internet has made it easy to find high quality, low cost courses that users can take at their own pace. This makes the process of acquiring completely new skills or updating old ones ridiculously easy.  The following are three of the best sites I’ve found that make distance learning simple and fun.

Open 2 Study

This educational site offers access to over 49 free courses taught by accredited instructors from leading, world class learning institutions such as The University of Newcastle, James Cook University and Macquarie University.

The courses cover a diverse range of subjects. From an introductory course in Chemistry, to Financial Literacy and Negotiation and Conflict Management that are of practical benefit to most business professionals and small business owners. Courses last about 4 weeks, and students that achieve overall passing marks can earn a statement of accomplishment which they can share on their resumes or social networks.

Skillshare

This online learning community gives adult learners the chance to learn by doing, and there are literally hundreds of classes to choose from. Students acquire new skills, or brush up on old ones, by working on course projects.  Students can choose to pay a low cost tuition fee for each individual class, or, can upgrade to a premium membership where they pay just $9.99 a month plus tax to take an unlimited number of courses. The subjects that are offered are wide ranging, and include courses with hands on experience in such topics as Fundamentals of Logo Design, Learn SEO to Grow Your Website, The Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship and many more.

Udemy

This online learning portal is one of the most well-known on the Internet. Over 3 million students have used the site to continue their education and skill development, and over 18,000 courses are offered at a low cost. The site offers courses in over 53 languages and allows anyone to take, or teach, courses through their portal. This site is particularly helpful for business owners that need a convenient way to train their employees, as the site provides simple to use template that makes it easy to create standardized training modules.  Regardless of what subject you wish to learn, chances are great that there is low cost class on the topic at this site.

Now that you know about the easy to use, low cost options to continue your education, what are you waiting for, what do you have to lose? Why not visit these sites and consider enrolling in an online class today!