Is online learning reaching far enough?

Online learning is one of the benefits of Internet. Students staying in far flung rural locations can now have access to education which otherwise is not available at their place. There are both advantages and disadvantages with online learning.

To get into details of online learning, it is also called e-learning. Lot of studies have been done to find the effectiveness of e-learning versus the traditional face to face learning. It is found that there are no differences between the two as far as learning is concerned. In fact online learning is found to be cost effective than a classroom session. The biggest advantage of online learning is that education can be imparted to students in geographical areas which lack educational facilities both at the lower and higher levels.

The other benefits of online learning are:

1. No particular premises or building is required with online learning. Scheduling and planning for online sessions is very simple.
2. Saves costs of transportation for the teacher and the student. This is especially true for students who are stressed out for time.
3. Online learning is very flexible. Learning can be done at  your convenience and time.
4. Accountability of the student can also be maintained online. The student could be made to submit assignments, project reports and homework online which could be assessed by the teacher. All the activities between the teacher and student can be monitored and stored online.
5. With multimedia tools and animations, online learning can be a very interactive and a fun filled experience. Lessons once created can be reused. Video recording of the teaching session can be used at some other point in time if required.

The disadvantages of online learning are:

1.  No real discipline can be imposed on the student. Being geographically far away hinders face to face interactions.
2.  The Internet resource is expected to be up and working all the time. If the infrastructure is down for some reason, sessions will get aborted. If the bandwidth of Internet is not good enough there could be garbled voice and video with clarity missing.
3.  In the absence of peer level students, learning can be a monotonous and boring exercise. There will be no competition and encouragement from others.

Though there are some disadvantages with online learning it is useful in some specific situations. Especially if the learner is immobile for some reason, lessons could be had from the comfort of home. Also online learning reduces the use of paper to a very large extent.