Article Education Technology
Article Education Technology
Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Education for World Citizenship
More and more young people choose non-traditional education to start and progress in their careers, while you complete and further their formal education. "Typical distance learners are those who do not have access to programs, employees who work during scheduled class hours, Homebound individuals, self-motivated individuals who wish to take courses for self-knowledge or advancement, or those unable or unwilling to attend class "(Charp, 2000, p. 10). Three key elements surround the online learner: technology, curriculum, and instructor (Bedore, Bedore, & Bedore, 1997). These elements must be keenly integrated into one smoothly and operationally functional delivery tool.
While an online method of training can be a very effective alternative medium of education for the mature, self-disciplined student, it is an inappropriate learning environment for more dependent learners. To participate in an online application, student to be well organized, self-motivated and have a high degree of time management skills to keep pace with the pace of the course. For these reasons, education online or e-learning is not appropriate for younger students (ie elementary or secondary school age), and other students who are dependent learners and have difficulty assuming responsibilities required on-line paradigm.
Millions of students use e-learning solutions in over 140 countries: corporations as Kodak and Toyota and training providers like ExecuTrain, New Horizons, Enoch Olinga College (ENOCIS), Phoenix University, among hundreds of schools and colleges.
Studies have shown student retention to be up to 250% better with online learning than with classroom courses. More recent have helped frame the debate. The Sloan Consortium published an extensive report titled "Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the U.S. in 2005 "that examined the growing prevalence of online learning across U.S. institutions.
In addition, a study conducted by Boston-based consulting firm Eduventures found that while about half of the institutions and more than 60 percent of employers generally accept the high quality of online learning, students' perceptions differ. Only about 33 percent of prospective online students said that they perceive the quality of online education should be "as good as or better than "face-to-face training. Ironically, 36 percent of potential students investigated the matter concerns the employers' acceptance of online education as a cause to their reluctance to sign up online courses.
But what actually drives quality? A march 2006 report released by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for postsecondary education at six quality indicators: mission, curriculum and instruction, faculty support, student and academic services, planning for sustainability and growth, and evaluation and assessment.
The debate rages on while the Pros and Cons of Online Adult Education for today's international students are constantly analyzed for to determine whether this type of training platform can deliver predictable and measurable results.
The Enoch Olinga College (ENOCIS) is an institution that uses this type of delivery system. ENOCIS improve their learning by offering many other "value added", cost reducing benefits to students. Online students can apply for scholarships available to students of excellence and other financial assistance programs such as Parent Loans for Students (PLUS), with attractive interest rates. They also provide practical payment facilities on line banking, Western Union Quick Collect, bank cards and a student who is granted a loan to start repayment, after two months if they have a corporate guarantor.
Benefits of Online Education:
The main advantages of online education experience are briefly explained below:
1st Cheaper: Online courses may be more affordable than those offered at colleges or trade schools. You can also save on transportation costs such as gas, bus passes, and parking permits because you do not have to commute to school and there is no housing or meals plans to worry about because you do not have to live on or near of a college campus. Housing expenses and other costs associated with living expenses are usually the most expensive aspects of college education, so by taking an online course you could save a lot of money. The best part of online education is the lack of travel and immigration problems.
2nd More Convenient: By taking courses online, are you able to decide when you study and for how long. You are also able to plan your study around your work or social schedule.
Since you are not tied to a classroom, you can do your work wherever you have access to a computer and Internet. You will be able to set your own pace and decide exactly how fast you want to go over the material. Take online courses when you need them, not based on some college's annual or semester schedule. You can learn when you need it (Just-In-Time)
3rd Flexibility: with no set class times, you decide when to complete your tasks and treatments. You set the pace. In some programs you can even design your own degree plan. The online students can carry out their private or official work with online teaching. They can allocate more time addressing the issues which they feel comparatively hard and vice versa. The speed of learning depends solely upon the students.
4th Technology: With the help of scientific technology, students can create their online instruction at any place. The only mandatory prerequisite is the availability computer with an Internet amenity.
5th Accessibility: distance learning has exploded in recent years, with many accredited and reputable programs.
6th Availability: in an online course, you can work on the track almost anywhere you have access to computers. Your educational opportunities are not limited by your geographic location. The new virtual classrooms have created a myriad of educational opportunities for global learning and education center. On line education is a new era experience adapting to the needs of world citizens.
7th Self-Directed: you set your own pace and schedule, so you control the learning environment.
8th Time spent in the classroom: Now you can take a course on almost any subject without ever being in or travel to a classroom, so you have very little wasted time. Note however that some distance-education still has an in-class component and normally to receive a fully accredited American university degree an international student must spend one or two semesters at the university.
9th High Quality Dialogue: Before an online asynchronous discussion structure, the learner is able to carefully consider whether each comment from others before responding or moving on to the next item. This structure allows students time to articulate responses with much more depth and forethought than in a traditional face-to-face discussion situation where the participant must analyze the comment from another spot and formulate a response or otherwise lose the chance to contribute to the discussion.
10th Student Centered: Within an online discussion, each student is equivalent to course material (lectures and course books, for example) and comments from other students. Students usually respond to these issues a broader conversation that most clearly speak to their individual problems and situations resulting in several smaller conversations taking place simultaneously within the group. While students are expected to read all their classmates contribution, they will be active only in the parts of the dialogue is most relevant to their needs. Doing so, the students control over their own learning experience and tailor the class discussions to meet their own specific needs. Ideally, students make their own individual contributions to the course, while at the same time take away a unique mix of information directly relevant to their needs.
11th Level Playing Field: In the online environment learners retain a considerable degree of anonymity. Discriminatory factors such as age, dress, appearance, disability, race and gender are largely absent. Instead the focus is clearly on the content of discussions and the individual's ability to respond and contribute thoughtfully and intelligently to the material at hand.
12th Synergy: Online format allows for a high degree of dynamic interaction between instructor and students and among students themselves. Resources and ideas are shared, and continuous synergy will be generated through the learning process each contributes to the course discussions and comments on the work of others. The synergy that exists in student-centered virtual classroom is one of the unique and critical feature that online learning format holds ..
13th Access to resources: It is easy to include distinguished guest experts or students from other institutions in an online class and give students access to resources and information worldwide. An instructor can prepare a resource section online with links to scientific articles, institutions and other relevant materials to the course topic for students to access research, extension or depth analysis of course content material in the global classroom.
14th Creative Teaching: The literature of adult education supports the use of interactive learning environments that contribute to self-direction and critical thinking. Some educators have made great progress in applying these concepts to their ground training. The nature of the semi-autonomous and self-driven world of the virtual classroom make innovative and creative approaches to teaching even more important. In the online environment, cooperation in the facilitator and students to create a dynamic learning experience.
Cons of Online Education:
Short explained are some factors that can negatively affect your success with distance learning courses:
1st The technology:
a. Equity and Accessibility to Technology: Before any online program can hope to succeed, it must have students are able to access the online learning environment. Lack of access, whether for economic or logistical reasons, will exclude otherwise eligible students from the course. This is a major issue in rural and lower socioeconomic neighborhoods and educate underserved peoples of the world. Regarding Internet accessibility is concerned, it is not universal, and in some areas of the United States and other countries, Internet is a significant cost to the user. Some users pay a fixed monthly rate for their Internet connection, while others pay for the time they spend online. If participants' time online is limited by the amount of Internet access they can afford, as instruction and participation in the online program would not be equitable for all students in the race. This is a limitation of online applications that are dependent on Internet access. Equal access to students from all backgrounds and sections of society
b. Requires New Skills / Technologies: If you are not computer savvy or are afraid of change or new technologies, then online education will probably not work for you. The online students must learn new skills such as researching and reviewing the Internet.
c. Computer Literacy: Both students and facilitators must have a minimum of computer knowledge to operate successfully in an online environment. For example, they could use a wide range of search engines and be comfortable navigating the World Wide Web, and be familiar with Newsgroups, FTP procedures and email. If they do not possess these technology tools, they will not succeed in an online program.
d. Limitations of Technology: User friendly and reliable technology is crucial for a successful online program. But even the most advanced technology is not 100% reliable. Unfortunately it is not a question of if the equipment is used in an online program will fail but when. When everything runs smoothly, the technology must be low profile and used as a tool in the learning process. In downtime situations broken systems technology is neither seamless or reliable, and can impair learning experience.
2nd Institution: Many online education facilities are relatively new with many courses and hence lack of modern instructors for instructing the new curriculum. Calculations show that there is still a need for an increase of more 50% of qualified instructors for online education.
b. Administration and Faculty: Some environments are disruptive to the successful implementation of an online program. Managers and / or scientific Employees who are uncomfortable with change and working with technology or feel that online programs can not offer quality education often inhibit the process of implementation.
3rd The Facilitator: Lack of Essential Online Features: Successful ground instruction does not always translate to successful online instruction. If facilitators are not properly trained in online delivery and methodology, successful implementation of the online program will be jeopardized. An instructor should be able to communicate well in writing and in the language course is offered.
4th Perceptions / Reputation: while slowly changing as more and more mainstream colleges and universities embrace distance learning, there is still a stigma associated with distance education to the students' interaction in online education. Some of the students believe that there are few options with regard for face-to-face interactions and feedbacks.
5th No Instructor Face Time: If your learning style is one where you want personal attention from your teachers, then online education will probably not work for you.
6th Little Support: Students are expected to find their own resources to complete tasks and exams, which is empowering for some, but daunting for others. There is little support and limited guidelines in on-line education system.
7th Lack of social interaction: while you often interact with classmates via e-mail, chat rooms or discussion groups, there are no parties or offline get-togethers.
8th No Campus Atmosphere: part of the traditional college experience, of course, is the beauty of the campus, college spirit, but you have none of that with distance education. Because you are not on campus or in classes, you may lack opportunities to meet other students.
9th Making Time: If you are a procrastinator or one of those people who always need an extra effort to complete the work, you may find it difficult to make time for your online classes. On line learning requires new skills and responsibilities from learners
10th Academic honesty of online students: requires a new mindset to online assessment. Most education experts agree that Rote memory test is not the best measure of learning in any environment and new measurement and evaluation tools are being developed.
11th Types and effectiveness of assessments: The importance of the findings in the online learning can not be over emphasized. Does the program have measurable results? Are students learn what you say they should learn? Then there are institutional outputs: course completion rates, job placement rates (if the goal of the institution) graduation rates of student success on third party testing, and student satisfaction scores.
These factors, both advantages and disadvantages, contribute greatly to make an informed decision about the direction of your career and how you will achieve your goals: online, classroom, or a combination of both.
Institutions and companies that use continuing education to meet their needs also face similar decisions. Institutions that deliver online education are confronted with a number of challenges, including the search for good faculty, use of technology and provision of adequate services for students.
The Sloan Consortium Report "Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the U.S. in 2005" found that 64 percent of senior academic officers and faculty believe that it takes more discipline for a student to cope in an online course than it does in a face-to-face course.
More and more major companies and industries are targeting the line continuing education as a viable and cost effective resource for training its personnel. Hilton Hotel has 380 hotels worldwide and is represented in 66 countries.
When you weigh the benefits and the benefits of online adult continuing education expenses for examination and flexibility to plan sinking of programs like Enoch Olinga College, Capella University and Phoenix's distance learning program online adult continuing education is a worldwide respected form of education.
But as with any situation there are both advantages and cons of the concept of online education and the benefits of the virtual or global classroom. You may want to evaluate both before you decide on an online education. By examining the pros and cons, you will be able to make a more informed decision. But at the end of the day, online learning, independent learning. A mass structure has been put in online programs, but it still comes down to a learner sitting in front of a computer by himself. The knowledge you receive or the benefits it will bring either in the development of self-esteem or increasing earning power would depend solely upon you the student.
About the Author
David W Morris is an international development specialist with The Enoch Olinga College (ENOCIS) and author of several publications on socio economic development. David is a regular contributor to online article sites on the topics of on line education, underserved peoples, scholarship and educational excellence, continuing education programs and on line TOEFL and language development. David W Morris is also a successful online adviser of ranking blog site www.enocis.blogspot.com.