Why Online Educational Systems?

The World Wide Web (WWW), or simply Web, is ubiquitous, all-pervasive and indispensable today. The influence of the web is felt in all aspects of human life – on-line shopping, e-ticket reservation, e-hotel booking and e-mail correspondence to name a few, and the domain of education is no exception. The advent of the web and the internet has brought a fundamental shift in the field of education. Education over the web, or On-line education as it is popularly referred to, is the buzzword today. A myriad of universities and educational institutions have resorted to means of providing on-line education owing to its growing popularity and increasing demand. The learning society has embraced the on-line education with open arms after carefully deliberating the numerous benefits it offers. On-line education has garnered widespread popularity and acceptance thanks to the myriad advantages it provides over the traditional classroom education.

Owing to the on-line education, the geographical barriers are removed and students have easy access to diverse educational resources on-line. One of the leading institutes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has come out with its OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative thereby providing open access to its course materials – lecture notes, readings, tests and video lectures, for its 1800 courses (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm). The people who benefit out of this free on-line education are not only students but also college teachers, self-motivated self-learners and those who have the time, interest and quest to learn. There are no geographical barriers and the entire world becomes the virtual classroom. Such is the power and reach of on-line education.

There are lot of benefits in on-line education and the following, though not a comprehensive one is a suggestive list of key benefits.

1 Student-centric approach – On-line education is more student-centric. The “anyone, anytime, anywhere” concept works fine for on-line education. Anyone – refers to student, teacher, retiree, business professional or anyone interested in learning. Anytime – student has access to the on-line course materials 24 hours a day 7 days a week; also the student can access the course at a time the student feels comfortable and is mentally active and alert. Anywhere – the place of studies is no more an issue and the student can literally be anywhere – at home, office, college, or street. On-line education is fully centered on the comfort of the student and thus offers unimaginable liberty, flexibility and convenience to the students.

2 High quality – The global reach of on-line education has made it possible that the on-line instructors / mentors / teachers are of top-notch quality and belong to various parts of the world. An interesting example would be that of Mr.Gilbert Strang, who is a renowned Maths professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a specialist in Linear Algebra and has written many popular college textbooks. His Maths Linear Algebra course which is offered for free as part of the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative is hugely popular and has been downloaded more than a million times. It is not only the few hundred students who attend the classroom in the MIT, are bestowed the privilege of taking Mr.Gilbert Strang's course, but because of the global reach of on-line education, millions of students all over the world also have benefited from this elite Maths professor's skills and course-ware.

3 Cost-effective – The good news is that on-line education can work out cheaper than traditional campus education. On-line education is affordable when compared to traditional education. It also saves quite a fortune in that one is saved from commuting in order to attend the classroom. Not only money, on-line education also saves the time and energy lost in managing a job, school and home. There is no dearth of free on-line education resources, of which a few are listed below:

3.1 http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php

3.2 http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm

3.3 http://itunes.stanford.edu/

4 Access to unlimited on-line resources – With many of the world's top universities becoming part of the on-line education initiative and giving away their course-ware for free, on-line education students could have never asked for more. With the technological advancements, on-line education makes it possible to include resources in different media types – graphics, photos, audio, video and texts – thus going great length to captivate and sustain the interest of students. There is no time limit to access these on-line resources, whereas in a typical classroom set-up, the duration of a subject class is always rigid and fixed. The student can log into his virtual classroom anytime that best suits him and take his own time in going over the material any number of times until he has fully understood and is satisfied with it. Such a great degree of elasticity is possible only in on-line education.

Though the students are spoilt for choices in on-line education, the one thing that should be given due attention is that there is no face-to-face interaction with the tutor and that there is no one to closely monitor. There are lots of modes of interaction with the tutor – like chat, e-mail, forums etc., but the onus is more on the student to take care of his own studies and progress. But it is no cause to worry. This way, students become more responsible for them and become good in efficiently managing their time. Self-discipline and self-motivation is required in students to make on-line education a success, but the same holds good for traditional classroom education too. Last but not the least, factors like flexibility, accessibility and quality have all contributed greatly to glamorize and popularize the on-line education and there is no doubt in that the on-line education can deliver even greater benefits in the future.

Kim Wilzon
260 Park Street
Miami, Florida, 72341
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