Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: online eduation esay
SUMMARY
In this article, Santos, McAndrew, and Godwin discusses about OpenLearn, an Open Educational Resources (OER) website that provides free learning materials to people around the world. The Open University (OU) UK, which is one of the members of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, launched OpenLearn in 2006 as part of its initiative to provide free educational materials for learners worldwide. OpenLearn runs under the Moodle open-source learning management system. Similar to a real online course from a university, people can access OpenLearn on their personal computer and/or laptop. A wide range of subject areas are available for the visitors to choose and study on their own time. Some available topics include Arts and Humanities, Business and Management, and Education. Most of the available materials cover introductory level of the courses and anyone can go through each topic in about two hours. Some topics require about ten hours of completion time.
Any individual who has never taken an online course before can experience online learning through OpenLearn. There is a discussion board, tutoring assistant, journals, and other learning tools in each of the topic the person selects. Before any learner can access some of the contents such as the discussion board, the person must register for a login account. The authors note that one important aspect of OpenLearn is students get to learn while communicating and sharing ideas with others. This process allows them to be part of the learning communities. As Santos, McAndrew, and Godwin (2008) explains, “the idea behind the provision of a forum, attached to each unit, is to give the users the opportunity for social learning. They are able to start learning communities, if they wish,...
... middle of paper ...
...e first step in providing free education to these individuals as more and more learning resources become freely available in the coming future. The most important asset of OER is offering a free learning tool to K-12, college and adult students. The Internet has become a part of everyone’s life today and all you need is one computer with internet access to connect to these educational materials. Mobile devices such as laptop, cellular phone, and iPad are becoming part of the learning tools outside of a personal computer. If you have one of these tools then you will be able to take advantage of the materials being offered by OER.
Works Cited
Santos, A., McAndrew, P., & Godwin, S. (2008). Open educational resources - new directions
for technology-enhanced distance learning in the third millennium. The Open University. Retrieved from http://oro.open.ac.uk/23855/
There is no doubt that Web-based courses have distinct advantages over traditional face-to-face interactions. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2003) maintain that Web-based courses are available at the learners’ convenience, are usually self paced, contain current information, accommodate a variety of learning styles, maintains equity for all learners, and can even save money in transportation and travel time. Another group of researchers, (Sunal, Sunal, Odell, & Sundberg, 2003) acquired data showing student satisfaction with the ability to communicate anonymously within their course.
Online learning: the wave of the future? Many say yes as students from kindergarten to the graduate level continue to participate in communication via the Internet. They range from small projects to entire online courses and degree programs. In the college classroom, the Internet has taken on a sort of “replacement” role to the traditional classroom set up, while in the secondary classroom, teachers are finding ways to incorporate the Internet, namely listservs and discussion groups to supplement the time spent in the actual classroom. This insurgence of technology helps students to become familiar with the Internet and software programs, it gives the shy student a chance to shine where he/she may not normally have a chance, and it has allowed for more student-generated discussion.
In order to show that the community and interaction are important to online learning and especially to the constructivist learning environments, this paper will first examine the definition of constructivist approach, identify relevant types of interaction and define community as it is understood in online learning environment. In addition the connection between the interaction and community building and the effects of interactions on the community will be examined. This paper will also take a look at the importance of community in the constructivist learning environment, by examining the interaction and community building, and will explain why the constructivist online learning goes beyond information or knowledge delivery.
In online learning, creating a comfortable electronic learning environment supportive of personal growth can be a particular challenge. Instructors meet this challenge by having learners get to know each other through introductions and brief descriptions of their experiences and interests (Kasworm, Rose, & Ross-Gordon, 2010). Digital online learning allows adults to learn via self-paced learning modules, multimedia case studies, simulations, video tutorials, and communications and assessment tools. As indicated by Kasworm (2010), adults are the largest age group to use online learning because of its convenience and flexibility. They are technologically proficient, self-confident, goal-oriented, and able to multitask, social, and good at working in groups (Kasworm et al., 2010, p. 29). Adult learning is cumulative, as we progress through life we attain more knowledge and dramatic life experiences often force us to stop and contemplate our thoughts about something (Merriam & Bierema, 2013, p.
There is good reason for the growth in online learning in college environments. Student populations have diversified since the introduction of the personal computer and internet (O’Malley and McCraw). Students with geographic, job, or other constraints are now able to benefit from a college education because advances in technology have enabled learning for those for whom higher education was previously not within the realm of possibility.
EDU922 has been an interesting experience, allowing me to consider the usefulness of collaborative online learning. Overall, the activities in EDU922 seem to have been designed to have the student become familiar with the idea of e-tivities by working through a set of tasks similar to those in Salmon’s book/model, starting with level one “access and motivation” (Salmon, 2003, p12) and working toward higher level learning, such as week seven’s, critical reflection on practice (stage 5). I feel this has been a fairly successful approach, increasing participants’ familiarisation with what they would expect their own students to experience when collaboratively learning online, as well as with the model itself.
As John Carroll and Ann Bishop state “Most learning takes place in communities.” (2005). This could be informal communities, such as a conversation at a workplace, or it could be a more formal setting such as a distance education course. Regardless of the level of formality, humans learn from one another through communication in some fashion. The issue for educators, then is how best to channel this natural tendency for learning, and how to best utilize technology in the process. Therefore, computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) focuses on employing the benefits of collaborative learning via networked computers (Computer-supported Collaborative Learning, 2007). The end-goal is to make use of the power of technology based on reliable and ubiquitous computing environments to facilitate and support learning in communities (Carroll, et. al., 2005).
Today’s generation is like no other. The nation as a whole has completely evolved from past times, with technology being one of the greatest improvements. Traditionally, schooling takes place in a classroom setting, but, with the many modifications in our world’s system, we are able to assimilate more modern means of education, such as online learning. However, with many changes comes differences and requires adjustments. The online learning system has proven to be just as effective as traditional learning, with some minor differences, however, nothing of great significance. A few of those insignificant differences include online learning being convenient, especially for the non-traditional students,
Digital learning is defined as learning through digital devices such as computers, tablets, or smart phones over the Internet. It is also known by other names, such as virtual learning, online learning, e-learning, distance learning, or continuing education. Digital learning was first introduced as “Computer Assisted Learning Center” in 1982 [1]. The first online course was introduced by “Computer Assisted Learning Campus” in 1994, in which students can take courses over the web [1]. Michael Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky founded Blackboard in 1997. In 1999, Blackboard, SmartThinking and e-campus became popular among different universities around the world. Between 2002 and 2008, there was an increase in students taking online courses by 187% [2]. In the year 2009, total number of students who were taking web-based curriculum was 5.5 million [2]. This statistic shows that the online learning trend is on the rise each day.
Irdus, R. M. (2003). Telecentres: Case studies and key issues. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 4(1).
Butcher (2010) defined open educational resources (OER) as the technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaption by a community of users and which is used for non-commercial purposes. OER are available at little or no cost and they are used for teaching, learning or research. This can include textbook, course readings and other learning content as well as other materials that can be used for educational purposes.
In the transition from our old styles of learning to our developing cyber network of education, there have been both positive and negative techniques in education that work. There has been a huge increase in the efficiency of education through developing technologies and we are able to communicate with each other faster than ever before. However, though we have our vast amounts of information, our ability to assimilate the information is still most efficient through inquiry and one-on-one training. The personal interactions between students and teachers promote the best learning.
People have a lot of options in educating themselves online in today’s time and technology. Online education has improved a lot in the past twenty years. Even though it has had its setbacks, it continues to show promising results. Online education has many benefits with little to no disadvantages. It provides flexibility in scheduling and offers various options in educational online programs. In the past decade, education has evolved into a more technological-driven world.
There are many advantages to online learning, it affects the way people can learn. According to “Effects of Technology on Classrooms and Students”, “students have a greater willingness to write or work on computational skills”. “They say student like the immediate results of having online learning.” Another advantage is that students can learn at their own pace. With learning at their own pace they will be able to actually know the information well. If, they are in a regular classroom setting they may no...
Every semester, millions of students in the US take at least one online class. In 2006, these numbers were estimated about 3.5 million. (The future 2) Back in the 1980s the online learning was limited only to watching previously recorded videos tapes has been used for some time and among other thing as well(2) but online learning has increased with technologies boost and stimulate. Some schools entirely offer their classes online only and the other have both online learning and traditional as well. On the other hand, the technology advancing has gave online learning more innovation in the way it is seen now. For instance, Khan Academic, founded by Salman Khan has been providing online Math tutors for most of all math levels. Student can easily