Last week I caught a video put together from the brilliant Professor Harvey Shapiro, and he was discussing the shift to online learning which has taken place in the last 12 months. In particular what the professor was talking about were the benefits that this kind of learning offers, to almost everyone involved. Admittedly he did recognize the fact that because of what schools offer with regards to social skills and discipline, that these should always continue and not switch to an online learning strategy, he was vociferous about the plethora of benefits which this style of learning offers.
Cost Saving
Online learning is able to extend a cost saving to everyone involved and this is certainly one of the biggest draws of learning online. The key reason is of course that the learning institute or facility is not having to pay for the overheads which a brick and mortar resource would have to endure. The cost saving is then passed onto the learner and that results in a win-win situation for all involved.
Flexibility of Hours
Very often online learning is not done in real time and the resources and the media which students can use to learn is pre-recorded and put together so that they can use and view it as and when they choose to. What this does is allow the student to study at a time which is suited to them and they don’t have to switch and change their lives around in order to meet with class times. Of course this extends a huge benefit and opportunity to people who work long hours or people like parents who have responsibilities which make attending class tough.
Wide Range
Thanks to remote learning a single educational facility is able to offer an enormous range of topics and courses to their students. They are able to do this because they can have professors from all over the world who can teach through an online portal, to students from other areas of the world. Because remote working brings the world closer together, educational facilities are able to give students a huge range of topics and courses, no matter how specific or niche they may seem.
Widely Respected
In the past online degrees were not considered as being the same level as someone who had actually attended a university and been accredited there. These days however all of this has changed and thanks to the high quality and the caliber of what online learning can offer, these qualifications are respected just the same as one which was earned through the more traditional route of attending school.
Ultimately online learning is not going to take over from the type of learning which we currently have in place. What we will see however is that in the coming months and years, that more and more people look to online learning as a very real alternative for attending schools and university for higher education.