Online learning is definitely not something new, but most of us would probably guess that the first fully online course was offered for the first time sometime in the 90s. The truth is it happened even earlier: In 1984, at the University of Toronto.
The Internet and its constant development made it possible for more and more educational institutions to offer this type of studying, and soon many courses were available this way. Finally, the pandemic of 2020 caused almost all forms of education to try and use the online model since the lockdown made face-to-face learning impossible.
But can it really be a complete and worthy substitute for the traditional way of teaching and learning? In the past, it was often treated like lower-quality education. Let us take a look together at some of the greatest pros of virtual learning and try to draw some conclusions about its actual success.
Accessibility and time management
One of the biggest advantages of online learning has to be the fact that your location does not matter anymore. You can access some of the greatest university programs and the best certification courses from wherever you are in the world.
This is particularly amazing in cases where the housing budget would play a major role in someone’s education: one does not have to move halfway across the world anymore to attend some amazing classes. Hence, one does not need to worry about financing that part.
Accessibility also means that you will probably attend more classes once you start the course than when you have to visit the classroom physically. Therefore, the attendance is higher.
And even if the school whose program you are attending is geographically pretty close to you, you still might want to save time and money on gas, parking, and all the other logistics that come with arriving from point A to point B in the modern world. All of the above makes this type of education environmentally friendly, in this day and age, a characteristic more important than ever.
Online learning, as you can guess from the above, also saves you time, but not just that. When you attend a course online, chances are you can access it at whatever time is convenient for you. If you work 12 hours shifts or your brain functions the best at night, the course is just a click away and available to you at the time you choose.
Take medical professionals, for example. Their education never stops, and they constantly have to update what they already know. This means that they often have to attend training and courses while working full time. With online learning platforms, this is so much more convenient for them, and they can easily do the ACLS renewal online, for example, by attending the course and getting the certification from their home.
Students learn more
When you attend an online course, you choose the pace and speed that works for you. This actually leads to learning more than in traditional courses and classes that happen in brick-and-mortar facilities.
IBM actually found and how big is this improvement: according to their data, one learns five times more through online education than through the traditional one.
On the other hand, we can recognize one disadvantage here: if you are studying online it is completely up to you to organize your time and be disciplined in order to achieve that pace that is good enough for you. This can be pretty challenging in some cases.
However, it is safe to guess that this issue hits more the generations that are used to traditional classes and having their teachers pressuring them to achieve deadlines. The younger generations and the ones that are still not in their school-age will probably be more used to this type of independence and the freedom to organize themselves, without the need for anyone to force them.
Lack of socialization can actually be a lack of distraction
One of the most commonly mentioned disadvantages of E-learning is the lack of social interactions. We do agree that it is not pleasant for most people to be isolated like this and have contact with other students and teachers through online platforms or even do not have it at all, except maybe in the written form.
But this can also have a positive side to it: students can actually choose when to have contact with others, rather than having it all the time like in a regular classroom. The latter can be challenging because being surrounded by your classmates can be a distraction either because of communication or because of the pressure they can cause when you are supposed to answer a teacher’s question for example.
In a nutshell
Looks like online learning is definitely the new form of learning that is going to stick with us. While it definitely has some disadvantages, like missing classes because of technology issues or, as we mentioned, the lack of touch with other people, we believe it is safe to assume all of these will be solved with time as this form of education slowly becomes - the usual one.
