Electronic learning or E-learning is the method of learning process which is supported by technology. Usually computers are involved and activities such as web conferencing, emailing and downloading of learning materials are done for the E-learning process. There are a lot universities and colleges out there who offer online degrees and involving more digital technology to allow their students to study in an E-learning environment with qualified assistance.
In Malaysia, MARA University of Technology (UTM), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), University Sains Malaysia (USM), University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) are among the few notable universities that are utilizing E-learning process to benefit their students. The development of e-learning strategies has been introduced into Malaysian public universities since 1996.
The introduction of E-learning has since brought a lot of advantages to major organizations (service providers) and individual (students). The very first advantage is the accessibility. Student can learn from anywhere, irrespective the location of their residence or the location of the organizations that provide E-classes. This can be automatically linked to environment impact reductions as students do not have to travel and virtual notes are used instead of paper notes. This is absolutely environmental friendly!
The second thing is the convenience and flexibility that a student can enjoy as E-learning process is available 24/7 where students can download lecture notes,, resources, assessments and assignments online from the website of the service providers. They also can interact with their lecturers and other students online through web conference or e-mail. Thus, they are not bound to time or day to attend classes where they must attend physically like traditional learning process.
Another advantage is learning for higher level of education, mainly tertiary studies, are made affordable yet maintaining the quality of the education as students can save up a lot of costs such as for accommodations, traveling, food and other anonymous fees necessary when you have to attend to the class physically. It is believed that a high caliber instructor can share their knowledge throughout the online network without boundaries.
However, nothing is perfect right? The main disadvantage of E-learning is the lack of face-to-face confrontation and communication between the students and the instructors or lecturers. Thus there might be no understanding between the students and the lecturers as feelings, motivation and non-verbal signs of students cannot be notice easily by web-conferencing although they can see each other, unlike the traditional learning process, Interaction between students and lecturers are necessary for building relationship and understanding as learning process is not one-way communication.
Students’ progresses also cannot be tracked since the lack of face-to-face interaction as the process of E-learning is self-paced by the students. Although this is not applicable to all students but E-learning’s students may be slacking due to the unsupervised learning process. It is best for students to learn what they should master in a specific time frame in their courses.
Although E-learning is growing and gaining popularity in every part of the world today as it has a lot of advantages to the students, instructors as well as the organizations that provides E-learning, it is undeniable too that E-learning has it’s disadvantages too. Whatever it is, we should fully utilize the benefits in the E-learning process and try to diminish the disadvantages through the cooperation with lecturers or instructors with good communication involved. Thus, there should be no problem for E-learning to carry on and continue to develop into one of the major learning process in the future.
reference links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning
http://www.hukm.ukm.my/
http://www.unimas.my/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=171&Itemid=138
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment