Online Learning Experience: A Tale of Two Students

Many students are of the opinion that taking a college course online has significantly enriched their academic lives because they were able to learn many skills such as navigating the Internet and using online research sources. This has enabled them to learn a lot about their course of study more than they have expected to. An article from http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/overview/reid.html relates the story of two online learning students.

Dee Baxley is an administrative assistant for The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta who has completed just under three years of her General Education degree, which inspires her to acquire more education. An experience in distance education has significantly helped her to manage her time well in balancing her studies, work and personal commitments. She has limited access to educational resources at a local library, which is why Baxley is very happy that online learning allows her access to viable options in terms of educational resources that are sourced worldwide.

Meanwhile, Russell Smith has a career on the rise as a Financial Sales analyst for Pitney Bowles working in the Southeastern Region. He allots much of his time doing trends analysis as well as reporting findings to executive officers and senior management. His educational attainment so far is a General Education major. Someday, he hopes to pursue a business degree. Smith feels strongly for combining Internet technology with educational studies, especially in the case of adults who are undergoing continuing education.

Their experiences are an example of Virtual Online Education, in which students take up credit and non credit courses from remote sites worldwide that can neither be bound by time or physical location. Essentially, this means that students come in contact with their instructors and fellow students in both real and virtual time scenarios. Using only a computer or a similar device with Internet connection and word processing capabilities, a student can send and receive lectures, assignments and educational resources. Knowledge, research and discovery are virtually at the student's fingertips in this setup.

Benefits of Using Electronic Learning for Distance Education

Distance education or also known as distance learning is an educational process of delivering or transferring knowledge to a student who is physically separated from the teacher. The development of computers and the Internet with their easy and affordable access and availability have made electronic learning or e-learning suitable for distance education. Consequently, many students who could not physically attend traditional classrooms have availed of various distance education programmes with the use of the e-learning approach.

If you are planning to take up a short-term course, or an undergraduate degree or a postgraduate degree on a full-time or part-time basis, but you do not have the time in physically attending classes in a classroom setting, you should consider taking up a distance education program that uses technologies based under the electronic learning approaches or methods. The two types of e-learning  technologies used in delivering distance education – the synchronous and the asynchronous.

The synchronous learning technology is the method of delivery in which the students should be present at the same time during the learning process, but they are not physically present at the same location. The synchronous technologies include educational television and instructional television, direct-broadcast satellite, Internet radio, web conferencing, video conferencing, telephone, and web-based voice-over-Internet-protocol.

The asynchronous learning technology is the method of delivery in which the students would access their educational materials on their own schedules so that they are not required to be present at the same time. The asynchronous  technologies include Internet forum or message board, audio and video recordings, electronic mail, voice mail, and facsimile.

The benefits of using the e-learning approach for distance education includes the student does not have to attend physically the classroom so that he could save money from transportation fares or car fuel costs, the flexible schedules offered by electronic or online classes, and having more time to spend for other personal activities.