Realizations: Pros and Cons of E-Learning

Originally, I was going to write about how informative I found the "Working the Web for Learning" article to be. Going through it was a breeze and the examples were actually really cool to try out (it gave me a few ideas for cyber camps), but then I read the BBC News article, "UK and China sign E-learning deal" and some things struck me as important to turn my attention to. Not until that moment, after reading the entire article, did I realize how e-learning could impact our societies.


Pros to e-learning:

1. Many people choose to leave their homelands in order to acquire a better quality of life; however some eventually miss their original residences and want to return home. E-learning will allow these people to become educated in the curriculum of their homeland and return there with an education relevant to that country and thus making it easier for them to acquire a job there.

2. The e-learning movement may allow schools in countries where English is the second language to save money on the hiring of ESL teachers from other countries. As well, students who want to learn other languages will not necessarily have to attend special language schools or physically attend classes at a school...they will just have to sign on.

3. Doctors of other countries, such as India, have always had a hard time coming over to Canada and acquiring a job as a physician in this country because the schooling and practices in India are not compatible to our practices and schooling. With the coming of e-classes, doctors in other countries will have a better chance at getting jobs in their career field, even maybe even their exact positions prior to their move.


Cons to e-learning:

1. Producing and supplying systems for e-learning is becoming a major market economy. As stated in the BBC News article, the UK has claimed 28 billion British pounds in education exports (in Canadian dollars that works out to approximately 56 billion dollars). Although this is good for the countries that are involved in this marketing economy, it is not so great for those countries that cannot afford to produce these systems, nor is it great for those countries that cannot afford to buy these systems. Rather it is creating a larger gap between the rich and poor countries because it is allowing those better off countries the opportunity to get higher quality and more accessible education. Thus, allowing for the less wealthy countries to be left in the wealthier countries technology-laden “dust”.

2. One thing that bothered me when reading the “UK and China sign E-learning deal” article, was the statement made by Mr. Sanghrajka saying that the “best practices in one country will be applied elsewhere.” Who is to decide what the “best practices” are?? I mean, I don’t argue with the fact that it would be nice to common practice to many things, such as health care practices, in every country. But, how do we say that one thing works better than another? How can we limit people like that? The only good thing about this is that it won’t limit people to work in only one country….for those that wish to travel, it will allow them to do that work that they are familiar with and still see those places that they always dreamed of visiting.

Conclusion:

With e-learning being a fairly new thing to most countries, there will be a few kinks to work out. So long as countries are willing to work together and agree on "best practices" together, this e-learning thing looks to be very encouraging as a revolution in the education atmosphere. Now, if we could just get everyone to agree that education should be free to all....we'd make huge leaps!

Text Processing: Affects and Impacts

There used to be a time, probably back in my great great grandmothers' schooling years, when textbooks consisted of ninety percent words on a page and the other ten percent was diagrams and drawings. Certainly, efforts were minimally made, through the written text process, to help children create visuals to better understand what they were reading.

Although, one thing is undeniable...educators back then were a little more hands on with their teaching as compared to today's educators. Teachers took students on road trips, encouraged participation in science experiments, and related teachings to personal experiences on a regular, almost daily, basis. It was a time when students could learn at their own pace.

Today, however, things have changed. With the coming of the Internet, web casts, blogging, and online education, children are being faced with an education that is less hands on and more "virtual" on, with a lot shorter time to learn things. Children are now able to watch a science experiment in a classroom across the other side of the world; they can click on a link that brings them to pronunciations for words in a foreign language; or they can skim through other students essays to get a better understand of Shakespeare’s plays.

In relation to publishing over the internet and the ability of students to process the text that they are reading, we have entered a time in education history where it has become very important for web authors to be extremely familiar with micro and macro-structures. Not only do web authors have to take these structures into consideration when writing, they also have to make sure that the sites they are creating are visually appealing and easy to navigate. What must not be forgotten by web authors is that throughout students schooling years, they are taught “shortcuts” in relation to reading. Skimming through articles and picking out the topic sentence or glancing at the paragraph headings has become a very important part of helping a student to figure out whether an article or paper is of any significance to their studies.

Students today are faced with a wealth of information being shot their way, and if web authors do not take into consideration the importance of writing a visually appealing and structurally sound article or paper, it is likely that their published material will be passed up, even if it is of great importance to a students learning process.