Online Learning Video

At Canisius College, we define online learning as courses or programs that are "fully online through our learning management system".

Unlike face to face, blended, or hybrid courses, learning in an online course takes place primarily through the internet. Learning Management Systems vary from school to school; Canisius College uses Desire2Learn. In general, LMSes provide a most efficient means to communicate content, ideas, and feedback between students and the instructor. Online learning may also involve other internet tools outside the LMS.

Online learning is one of several formats for learning. Many college professors are understandably enthusiastic about face-to-face, classroom learning. Faculty have developed and proved techniques for teaching students this way for a very long time.

But online learning offers key advantages of its own. Most obvious is convenience: students and faculty need not be in the same place at the same time.

Online learning can also offer students at least as many different ways to learn as in face-to-face courses, with content delivered as text, audio, video, or interactive experiences.

Unlike most face-to-face lecture situations, students can easily revisit and review materials for greater comprehension.

Online discussions can have different dynamics than face-to-face classroom discussions:

• students have time to compose contributions before posting online.
• Students shy in classroom discussion may open up in online discussion, and feel more comfortable contributing.
• Discussions may be enlivened with greater diversity, because more students from different parts of the country or world may be participating.