Advantages of online learning
Advantages of online learning
There are some obvious advantages to online learning:
Flexibility: Online learning means that students themselves can decide when to access course materials and when to learn. Not everyone learns best the same. Some students might prefer to study in the early mornings, others late at night. Different people have different life commitments and schedules. For example, a mother might need to fit learning around childcare. A full time worker might slot learning around the working day. We are all different. Online learning lets people learn when it suits them best.
Accessibility: Online learning opens up educational opportunities for those who could not formerly access it. This might be because of work or family commitments. It could be that people lived in remote locations, or simply places where it was not possible to access educational institutes. There is also a cost element to this; online learning offers the chance for those who could not afford to learn to access teaching material at a lower cost.
Variety: Online learning is far more than simply reading text on a computer screen. Formerly, many were put off education because they struggled with traditional teaching methods, not learning well from lectures or from textbooks. Not everyone enjoys reading. Not everyone finds it easy to read. But online learning can be provided in a wide variety of formats. These can include prerecorded lectures, live video sessions, interactive exercises, games, and video clips.
Wider range of topic material: Traditionally local colleges provided a limited offering in terms of subjects that could be studied. This was partly because they were limited as to what people could teach! Colleges might have trouble obtaining lecturers for some specialized topics. Also there was an economic aspect. Education providers had to provide courses that were financially viable. Hence they had to offer courses they knew they could fill. This limited the range of topics that could be provided. There are no such problems with online provision. An expert in a topic can teach via the Internet wherever they are situated. This means that learners have access to specialists from potentially anywhere in the world. Also learners can be recruited from across the globe; economies of scale are possible for online education courses, which was not the case for courses offered by local colleges.
Read more online at: What is online learning?
Or my book: Teaching Online: A guide to developing online learning resources.