Here are my views on the benefits of e-learning, a topic for discussion on the e-tutoring course I am on this month. I am afraid this post is long (apologies) and some of the statements might be seen as ironic (if you decided to continue reading this, bring your sense of humour – I know that I am in breach of one of the recommendations for online communication).
In addition to what has already been discussed, e.g. international aspects, widening participation, flexibility, etc., I do believe that e-learning is very personal, regardless how large the group of learners is:
§ You are facing the computer, reading text that is addressed to you and you are not aware what the rest of the group are doing at this moment of time, even is you’ve seen how many are online (the loneliness and bliss of the online learner) .
§ It is your choice where and how long you study and you can express your feelings about the long lines of text you have to go through, without your body language revealing how ‘fond’ you are of plain text when you are a visual learner.
§ When you contribute to discussion boards you inevitably compare your thoughts and contributions these with others and as a result build your confidence (or angst) about your ability to express yourself though the written word. And, if you manage to stay positively focused after a long day at work, you praise yourself for your perseverance and developing your knowledge and understanding.
§ There is more time to think about something before you say it/write it and more time to question whether this is written using the correct grammatical person (i.e. first person singular or second person). And as you have forgotten the correct grammatical term, you quickly ‘google’ key words that bring in a few suggestions that help.
§ It is great as it allows materials to be available at anytime of the day at any place with Internet connection for as long or as many times you need them. It does not mean that you can’t have the face-to-face – you can, if your tutor(s) provide video messages/materials.
From a tutor’s point of view, the latter is time-consuming and could be nerve-wrecking if you want to get things perfect. I spent about 3 hours of recording and deleting to produce my 5min welcoming message to my online cohourt before I accepted the fact that I am not Audrey Hepburn and would never be her, neither will have her diction. But my students know (if their infrastructure supports Flash files and can cope with bigger file) now that I exist in the physical world…
Traceability is another benefit that I, as a tutor, am so grateful to. I would not refer to this as e-learning, as it is about the management and monitoring of the learners. The VLE (Virtual Learning Environment, e.g. Blackboard, Moodle et al) duly reports that students have accessed the materials (or not) even if they have not contributed to the exercises. This allows for choosing a more appropriate tone for the tutor’s messages. Needless to say, this presents a reliable evidence of the support offered and given that helps in addressing any unfair/false accusations.
You''ve been warned - this was a long message. Yes, e-discussions could be very time consuming for both learner and reader, if the topic strikes a cord. But it was your choice to read it till the end. ;-) For which I thank you warmly.
