eLearning in English: Cool Fun Web 2.0 Stuff
http://prezi.com/nquoxy8ltqgk/elearning-in-english-cool-fun-web-20-stuff/
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Introduction Traditionally, our system of education places the emphasis on the institution rather than the learner. The classroom is the main source for the exchange of knowledge and ideas, and all curricula is oriented to traditional disciplines and professions. Degree requirements are based on institutional standards and policy, and the degrees are awarded when all credits are earned within a set period of time. Distance learning (or distance education) is student –oriented and exactly what the term implies – any type of study that makes place when the instructor and the student(s) are separated by physical distance, with printed materials and various technologies used for communication and program delivery. Whether the student chooses to enroll in just one course or an entire degree program, the distance learner determines what he/she will learn, and how and when that learning will take place. The responsibility for learning rests squarely with the learner. For that reason, he/she must be extremely motivated and self disciplined in order to have a successful distance learning experience. Distance education may also use all forms of technology, from print to the computer. This range will include radio, television, audio video conferencing, computer aided instruction, e- learning/ on line learning through internet etc. Distance Education has traversed four to five ‘generations’ of technology in its history. These arc print, audio/video broadcasting, audio/video teleconferencing, computer aided instruction, e- learning / online learning, computer broadcasting etc. Yet the radio remains a very viable form, especially in the developing nations, because of its reach. In India the FM Channels are becoming very popular and is being used by the Indira Gandhi National Open University and its consortia plus the state open universities, to broadcast educational programs of variety on areas such as teacher education, rural development, programs in agriculture for farmers science education, creative writing, mass communication, in addition to traditional courses in liberal arts, science and business administration. On the other, models of distance education utilized regular mail to send written material, videos, audiotapes, and CD – ROMs or other media storage format (e.g. SDRAM or Compact Flash cards) to the student and to turn in the exercises. Today’s distance education course makes use of E- mail, the Web, and video conferencing over broadband network connections for both wired physical locations and wireless mobile learning. In some countries, the material is supplemented by television and radio programming. To compete with the conventional sector, course material must be of very high quality and completeness, and will use modern technologies such as educational animation. Distance education also involves time to time interaction with the faculty of the university that offers the course In short, the range of distance learning technologies available currently falls into four categories:
The flexible nature of distance education allows students a variety of nontraditional options for earning credits which may be incorporated into the undergraduate distance degree program-transfer credit from accredited college course (including distance education courses), credit by examination, and credit for experiential learning” (any relevant learning experience in which the knowledge gained can be demonstrated through a portfolio process to be equivalent to college-level learning). The emergence of the distance education system is obviously an inevitable development in the evolution of education. The inherent inadequacy of the conventional education system to accommodate the ever increasing frontiers of knowledge and the tremendous increase in the number of aspirants for higher education has led to the emergence of distance education all over the world. It has assumed universal recognition for its ability to extend educational opportunities to all and widen the access for the sake of equity through its innovative and flexible strategies. It is now commonly believed to be a ‘wave of future’ (Khan 1999), with unlimited possibilities where conventional main stream higher education does not have sufficient to deliver. Thus the recent competition in the tertiary services and the growth of the information based economy compel the universities to transform tertiary education in to distance form. There has been a tremendous development in the field of innovations in new communication technologies, such as the satellite based telecommunications and the computers which offer a wide-range of facilities such as the e-mail, internet and a range of interactive devices such as CD-ROM, audio video conference, voice mail computer mediated conferencing etc. are contributing to the enhanced interactivity between teachers and students, and are thus making up for separation of learners in time and space from the teachers. Thus in the quest for new humanism and peace and in total integration of culture and technology a new stage has come in the evolution of education which is acting as an agent of change in the development of individual personality, in assuring greater element of equity and access transcending social, economical and geographical barriers and in the enhancement of knowledge and culture. Thus, this third stage of educational evolution-the Distance Education, symbolizes the transformation of education from the stage of craft to technology, denuding it with high flexibility and vastly increased productivity, by transporting knowledge to the people, in place of transporting people to the place of knowledge. In order to augment opportunities for higher education as an effective instrument of democratizing education and make education a lifelong process, distance education and make education a lifelong process, distance education has emerged as an important component of the National Policy on Education in our country. Distance education is a means of acquiring knowledge and qualification without attending the college study on a regular basis. It is meant for those who could net afford normal education clue to many factors like non-availability of admission, finance, geographical location, suitable time etc. Earlier this was mainly through correspondence but in recent years, multimedia approach made it more effective in terms of curriculum delivery, contact lectures, audio-video conferencing, etc. In course of time, it has become, as one of the most effective ways of up gradation of skills and qualifications. Distance education helps in dissemination of knowledge to people. Multimedia approach in distance education has made it more learners friendly and cost effective. A diversity of target groups can be identified and trained through distance ode. The physical infrastructure and financial expenses incurred in a traditional learning centre are far more as compared to those required for more as compared to those required for educating masses through distance mode. Through distance education mode, the indigenous technology which is lying dormant or which has only a small area of application can also be put into effective use by putting it in public domain so that the same cannot be exploited by vested interests. Since certificate and diploma courses are of short duration and their effectiveness on employment generation can be gauged quickly and remedial measures can be undertaken effectively in terms of changes of curriculum, methodology, clientele, etc. Thus the gestation period in distance education is less as compared to traditional courses. The Concept and Dimensions of Distance Learning The term open in reference of education and training has becoming widely used. In distance learning, use becoming widely used. In distance learning, use of technologies for flexible delivery is considered as important component of an open learning approach. The term flexible implies flexibility in both access and choice in learning. For higher education and industry training as well as for all types of professional institutions, the flexibility approach facilitates flexible delivery to suit the word patterns and professional needs of adult learner. The interactive technologies equally empower both the ends- instructor (teacher) and learners. Distance education has really opened a new window of opportunities for those who desire for further studies. In a way it has helped numerous professionals, dropouts (school & college), housewives, etc to accomplish their unfinished dreams. It has immense relevance, particularly in a country like India, where pursuing education is a pricey affair. The whole purpose of providing Distance education is to provide cost-effective, quality education to large sections of our population including those living in remote and far fling areas. Distance education helps in dissemination of knowledge to people. Multimedia approach in distance education has made it made it more learners’ friendly and cost effective. A diversity of target groups can be identified and trained through distance mode. The physical infrastructure and financial expenses incurred in a traditional learning centre are far more as compared to those required for educating masses through distance mode. In order to clarify the variety of terms related to the subject, an attempt is made here. The education sector includes basic education (the acquisition of literacy and numerical skills), secondary education , higher education (also known as tertiary education ) and, more specialized professional, training, as well as what is called “lifelong-learning”- the necessity to continually update and learn new skills through either corporate workplace learning or access to community education. In some countries, educational services, in addition to the above-mentioned instructional activities, also include activities designed to support educational processes (for example, educational testing services or student exchange programme services.) Arguably, education also extends into other kinds of cultural and leisure activities – visiting a museum, watching a television documentary, going to the theatre or reading a book. In all of these areas, ICT – and in particular the use of the internet – are having an impact on why and how people access learning and what they use it for. The potential uses of ICT in education are vast: from radio and television programmes to the use of CD-ROMs, e-mails and the World Wide Web. The internet has a number of uses within education: disseminating learning content, enabling communication between students and teachers, and engaging in and publishing research. The use of the Internet for education, including these of websites and e-mail, has come to be known as online education. Online courses frequently use the Internet in combination with other delivery modes. For example, they may require attendance at a two-day face-to-face seminar or may provide some course materials by mail. Here it is therefore recognized that online education does not necessarily entail 100 per cent online provision, and will consider online courses to be those where most of the content delivery and interaction is online. E-learning is a broader notion that online learning and equally has no universally acknowledged or standard definition. A most inclusive definition of e-learning, which embraces every kind of teaching and learning situation using some element of electronic or digital resourcing (radio, audiocassettes, videocassettes, TV, personal computers, e-mail, Web), considers online education a subset of e-learning. Another concept is blended learning. As the name suggests, blended learning is learning that combines different modes of student engagement. In practice, the use of blended learning has been limited to the combination of online learning with face-to-face instruction. Desmond Keegan has proposed a synthetic approach and has mentioned that the distance education has the following main characteristics:
Keegan has viewed the operational facility for the use of distance education and has also stressed on the application of various appropriate technologies for synthesizing distance teaching and distance learning. (Kay 1981) has presented a system oriented view. According to him, “these operating activities describe those activities which contribute to imparting, evolution and expert perceptions which define the nature of the enterprise and differentiate it from other enterprised”. The operating activities are split into two:
The emerging Information Technology (IT) has revolutionized the entire communication system and has transformed the whole human society into a global village. Teleconferencing is no longer belongs to world | to science fictions it has been a great reality in Distance Education or Open Learning or even in administration. IT is no more a prerogative or privilege of the developed countries, but an ordinary facility and necessity of the developing countries. Knowledge and information consists of the meeting point between education and IT information is turned to knowledge and data with the help of media. Media are selected for “Integrated Media” approach according to the following criteria:
India is called a sub-continent in view of its physical vastness. But it is also a country of various diversities in terms of language, caste, creed, socioeconomic status, etc. These variations are also reflected in the learners’ group and bring about variations in the cognitive abilities, affect and teaching-learning, situations adversely and divergently. Besides, there are multiplicity of academic courses and specialization streams. These variations and diversities pose peculiar problems for teachers, supervisors, planners and administrators. The age old teaching methods like lecture or “chalk or talk” are not adequate to do justice to do justice to the intellectual, psychological and emotional needs of the learners of higher education at present. The various dynamic methods of teaching with the help of media appropriate to learning objectives and experiences need be adopted both in formal and non-formal settings of education. Self-instructional materials with the support of teaching machines, computers, TV and radio can make higher education very effective as well as interesting. The atmosphere of dullness, lifelessness, inertia, unattractiveness can be removed. This can be done only with the use of different media. The increased use of educational technology is only a minor aspect of the redesign of courses of considerable stress both for staff and for students. As more teachers make use of the Web for delivery of courses and for interaction with students, the careful choice of software tools can reduce this stress by providing interfaces that are easy to drive, thus reducing the cognitive overhead for staff and for students. The still-developing west educational management system provides a simple consistent interface to many of the communication and interaction tasks teachers need to carry out in constructing and managing courses that make use of the Web. Most University staff enjoys learning, but the methods of learning they mastered (from face-to-face discussions to solitary burrowing through the stack of a library) may not be as comfortably available to students in joint future. As our society moves from universal secondary education to universal tertiary education we will increasingly be subject to pressures designed to influence us to make the University experience more accessible, allowing busy people to fit it in to their working day when they see fit. We will lessen the disruption to students’ lives by reducing the need for hem to travel to the central University site in order to engage with the University experience. Open learning and Distance education are borderless not only in concept but also in move. The acceptability of this mode is increasingly very fast; some examples for the year 1998 reveal that open learning and distance education are crossing national borders. The British Open University adds 25,000 students taking courses outside the country (Daniel 1998). With a view to widening the horizons of education opening the new frontiers of knowledge and democratizing the teaching-learning process, non formal educational systems like open universities, open schools, Distance learning or Distance Education Systems are introduced to overcome the deficiencies and inadequacies of the traditional and formal educational system. The expansion which has been done over the hundreds of years through this formal system has been lopsided and undemocratic in the sense that the rich and aristocratic people have been benefited more that the poor and lower classes. There is, therefore, glaring disparities and discriminations between the rich and poor, high and low classes. Education has to be made accessible to all irrespective of financial, social, psychological and other conditions. In this situation, distance Education has been found an alternative, a boom and a remedial measure. Development of Distance Education In the developing world, since the 1950’s, the population has doubled to over five billion people, most of whom want to be literate and want greater educational opportunities for themselves and their children. The majority of this expanding population is in Asia where there are massive problems of poverty, illiteracy and disease. In most developing countries, such as Bangladesh, distance education offers the promise of a system of information distribution through which new ideas, attitudes and understanding might begin to ooze through the layers of the disadvantaged environments. Drawing upon the well known model of the British Open University, countries such as Pakistan, India and China have combined modern methods of teaching with emerging technologies in order to provide low-cost instruction for basic literacy and job training. Turkey has recently joined those nations involved in large scale distance learning. Only twelve years old, their distance education program has enrolled almost one million students and is the 6th largest distance education program in the world. Because of the economies of size and distribution, both industrialized, and developing countries have embarked upon distance education programs. In the early 1980s, record numbers of students in developing countries have gained access to higher education through distance education programs. In many cases, local experts are not available to develop original programs in the language and culture of the people. For this reason, the majority of educational programs is either used intact from the host country or is superficially translated with very few adaptations to the local culture. When this is done, the results are often unsuccessful. The cultural values of the program designer become dominant, desirable, and used as the standard. Drawing upon the well known model of the British Open University, countries such as Pakistan, India and China have combined modern methods of teaching with emerging technologies in order to provide low-cost instruction for basic literacy and job training. Turkey has recently joined those nations involved in large scale distance learning. Only 12 years old, their distance education program has enrolled almost one million students and is the 6th largest distance education programme in the world. It goes without saying that formal system of education has contributed significantly to the expansion of education as a whole. But such expansion has been lopsided and undemocratic in the sense that the aristocratic and affluent people have benefited by the traditional system more than the poor and lower classes. There is, therefore, glaring disparity and discrimination between rich and poor people, high and discrimination between rich and poor people, high and low classes, and undeveloped countries. This gulf instead of being bridged is becoming widened day by day and unless such imbalance is removed or reduced to the minimum, peace, prosperity and progress of the mankind cannot be achieved to the desired extent. Education has to be made accessible to all irrespective of financial, social and psychological conditions; life long education is also emphasized not only for all, but also or all stages of life. People engaged in various vocations or deprived of education at any stage of their life may like to get education of their choice. Thus equalization of educational opportunity should be ensured through diversified sources and multipoint entries and democracy can transcend the entire educational system throughout the world. Considering India, there are three aspects that deserve mention – (i) External Registration; (ii) Correspondence Courses; (iii) Open Universities of these, the external registration may not deserve consideration since the universities allow the students t o register in some of the existing courses and allow them to write the examinations without the requirement of attendance in classes. The universities take no responsibility for any special instruction; do not supply any instructional material. Unguided by the university, the students depend on self-study and/or the privately run tutorial colleges. For the purpose of our discussion, correspondence courses and open universities alone are relevant and we many consider them. Use and Role of Internet Technology in Distance Learning In the Web-based Distance Education mode of education, students may not be required to be present in a classroom, but for certain courses which have practical components such as those for computers, attendance to the tune of about 90% is compulsory.
CR-ROMs or other media storage format (e.g. SDRAM or Compact Fiash cards) to the student and to turn in the exercises. Today’s distance education course makes use of E-mail, the Web, and video conferencing over broadband network connections for both wired physical locations and wireless mobile learning. In some countries, the material is supplemented by television and radio programming. To compete with the conventional sector, course material must be of very high quality and completeness, and will use modern technologies such as educational animation. Distance education also involves time to time interaction with the faculty of the University that offers the course. The flexible nature of Web-based distance education allows students a variety of nontraditional options for earning credits which may be incorporated into the undergraduate distance degree program transfer credit from accredited college courses (including distance education courses), credit by examination, and credit for experience in which the knowledge gained can be demonstrated through a portfolio process to be equivalent to college-level learning.) Many proponents of online education are more focused on “greater access, equivalent quality,” working to make online learning becomes a significant, and eventually even seamless, part of the mainstream of higher education which improves the quality of the learning experience, often motivated by witnessing how online learning supports improved learning effectiveness. Methodology of Internet Learning: Types, Nature and Trends Today, there are built-up pressures of income vs. expenditure equality and social justice, deregulation, improved productivity, quality assurance and global competitiveness, on every kind of organization whether it is service oriented or production oriented. All universities are lacing challenges with regard to these pressures and to survive in the competitive climate of today. Due to all these pressures, the universities are lacing challenges with regard to these pressures and to survive in the competitive climate of today. Due to all these pressures, the universities are required to find out ways in which more effective and need-based undergraduate/postgraduate as well as continuing/ professional education programs are designed and delivered. Due to privatization and evolution off self-supporting system of education and training a number of non-government private institutions are coming up exponentially particularly to provide professional / vocational education and training. The challenges before the providers may be summed up as below Conclusion: The second generation, with the advancement of communication, technologies and with the development of electronic highways, since 1990’s the interactive delivery a like F2F, would become possible and as a result virtual universities came into existence to deliver higher education. The increasing damnation with the changing global scenario of job market requires a quick, faster and flexible education system. Further, limited number of existing institutions of higher education has arisen a question is there a need for students and teachers to meet on campus? Or is there any possibility of an alternative education to accommodate the growing college-aged population and cater their needs or fulfill their demands effectively? The following specific trends, categorized as student enrolment trends, faculty trends, academic trends, categorized as student enrolment trends, faculty trends have also created the pressure to find out an alternative education system. |
Wednesday 1 June 2011
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