Education

The Internet has done wonders in allowing ease of access to education.  Search engines are extremely quick to use and provide far more results than an encylopedia would.  But the rise of online learning courses has meant that people don't even have to leave their house to get a degree. 

But is this method of learning really more efficient than traditional methods?


Efficient - yes.  Effective - not necessarily.

Online courses fit around people's everyday lives - they don't have to travel to and from lectures.  Submitting coursework all happens in the home, through e-mail or online submission.  But lack of face-to-face communication with lecturers has got to have a negative effect on the quality of work produced.


I completed an Open University short course last year, in my final year at school.  It was the most bizarre learning experience I have ever endured.  Instead of having friends whom I could discuss the work with in order to gain a better understanding, there was an online forum in which users would post questions and comments about the course. 

The forum was fantastic as a place where all users could turn to if they had a problem.  But without having been given the opportunity to get to know the people who were studying the same short course, how could I trust them and their answers? 


Often, arguments would break out on the online forum if one person disagreed with what another was saying.  People felt brave, knowing they could say whatever they like and gain no reputation in the real world.  This is a form of cyberbullying, which, as I have previously discussed in this blog, is a form of bullying that is easy to accomplish anonymously.


Another odd situation that occurred quite often was that someone would pose a question and recieve no answer.  If people don't know the answer to that particular problem, they can just ignore it - something that could not happen in the real world.  This is the reason that I, and I suspect, many other people, felt very iscolated whilst studying the course.  It wasn't like I could ask any of my teachers or schoolfriends, as they had no clue of the content of the course.


That's where the tutor comes in.  The only way in which a tutor could be contacted was by e-mail, and in special circumstances, telephone.  I was never in a situation where I needed to contact my tutor when studying the course, but many of the questions posed on the online forum were because the tutor had not responded to that person soon enough.  In the real world, you can go and see your tutor or lecturer and recieve an answer instantly.  This is where the Internet's 'instant' trait falls flat, as one tutor to hundreds of people from all over the world is not sufficient.

The following infographic contains a great detail of information, not just on online learning, but e-learning as a whole, including a mention of the Open University, with whom I studied my short course.



This infographic certainly supports the idea of e-learning, and I do too, due to its ease of access and the way it can be carried out at the user's own speed.

But I'm not sure if I would recommend e-learning as a method of achieving a degree.  Online courses just don't provide participants with appropriate learning materials - I think it is good to have a mixture of online materials and also physical class activities and tutorials. 

But everyone learns in different ways, so I'm not going to judge too harshly.

I think for young children, pre-primary school age, e-learning is a fantastic way to teach them basic skills like maths and spelling, before they are thrown into a physical learning environment.

References

Infographic from webpage:
JACKSON, N., 2011. Infographic: How the Internet Is Revolutionizing Education [online].  Washington: The Atlantic Monthly Group. Available from: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/infographic-how-the-internet-is-revolutionizing-education/240338/ [Accessed on 6 April 2012]