Firstly, best wishes and luck to everyone during this pandemic. If you've been affected by COVID-19 I'm sorry for what you and your family are going through and wish you the strength to move forward in a positive direction.

First a few words

I want everyone to be cognizant of what is happening: The people we are counting on the most are people we overlook every single day. These are the workers in warehouses, grocery stores, restaurants, fast food places, delivery people of all sorts (from truckers to UPS to DoorDash), and those making sure our basic services like electricity and sanitation don't get disturbed during our isolation and lastly shout out to everyone in healthcare including housekeeping, dietary, maintenance, and all the other jobs people don't mention when they talk about healthcare workers sacrifices. A lot of these people work thankless and low paying jobs and are continuing to work either under tremendous pressure from themselves to provide these services or from the fear of losing their modest income. Remember this, we need to revisit how to best serve these people when this is all over.

So without further delay...

Now is a Great Time to Diversify Your Skills

Aside from the unhealthy dose of reality COVID-19 has provided, it has also given a lot of us a ton of free time. Educating yourself is probably the best way to turn this horrifying situation into a positive life experience and there may never be a better time to work on and enhance your skills.

Sites For Tech Skill Enhancements

This is not an ordered list, nor is it a best value list, it's not even a thorough list. Just a brief description of what each site has to offer.

Scrimba
Scrimba is a site with both free and paid courses to learn a plethora of coding skills. Scrimba has easy to listen to instructors giving very concise lessons that are easy to follow. But the best part about Scrimba is the interactive learning tool that allows you to pause any video and it turns into a sandbox for you to practice! This is an awesome tool that can help embed coding lessons very quickly.

Free Code Camp
Free Code Camp is exactly what the name implies: a free coding bootcamp. Their commitment to free isn't just a marketing ploy either, it's an entire identity. Boasting 40,000 graduates who have been employed at tech companies all across the business world, this is not a "you get what you pay for" sort of platform either. Free Code Camp offers certification in Responsive Web Design, JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures, Front End Libraries, Data Visualization, APIs and Microservices, Information Security and Quality Assurance, and even manage to offer some Coding Interview Prep.

I have only dabbled in Free Code Camp a bit as I was pretty deep in my Flatiron School curriculum by the time I found out about this site, but the early portion of Free Code Camp curriculum is just as well done as the free courses offered by Flatiron to get students interested in coding. As such, FCC is usually my go to recommendation for coding newbie's if you want to see if coding is for you.

Coursera
Coursera is an awesome site that provide tons of courses developed and sponsored by institutions such as Google, University of Michigan, John Hopkins University, and many more. Coursera doesn't offer just certifications though, you can even earn a full degree through programs offered in Coursera. Most courses are designed to allow you freedom of flexibility and can be done on your time.

There are tons of courses in a variety of fields to choose from such as Computer Sciences, Social Sciences, Health, Business, and more. As a user of Coursera myself, I can wholly recommend it and testify to it's effectiveness.

Udemy
Udemy is a site hosting both free and paid for content developed by experts in just about any field yo ucan imagine. There is something for everyone on Udemy with categories ranging from tech to instrument learning.

Udemy isn't as formal an education as Coursera or EdX, and relies on the experts submitting the lessons to be effective. So do your research very thoroughly on each course you plan to buy. There are often several options (sometimes dozens) available to you on the same subjects, and not all of them are created equal or may be of equal liking to you.

EdX
EdX is a site similar in structure to Coursera with a very impressive list of Schools & Partners. Unlike the previous entries, I have yet to use EdX even a little bit, but it has left me impressed.