CC BY
12PHILOLOGY
VARIOUS APPROACHES TO E-LEARNING CONTINUE TO EVOLVE
Gurbanova Gulay, teacher
Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University
DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.31435/rsglobal_ws/31102018/6184
ABSTRACT
E-learning has made its entrance into educational institutions. Compared to traditional learning methods, e-learning has the benefit of enabling educational institutions to attract more students. E-learning not only opens up for an increased enrollment, it also gives students who would otherwise not be able to take the education to now get the possibility to do so. This paper introduces Axel Honneth's theory on the need for recognition as a framework to understand the role and function of interaction in relation to e-learning. The paper argues that an increased focus on the dialectic relationship between recognition and learning will enable an optimization of the learning conditions and the interactive affordances targeting students under e-learning programs. The paper concludes that the engagement and motivation to learn are not only influenced by but depending on recognition.
Citation: Gurbanova Gulay. (2018) Various Approaches to E-Learning Continue to Evolve. World Science. 10(38), Vol.2. doi: 10.31435/rsglobal_ws/31102018/6184
Copyright: © 2018 Gurbanova Gulay. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
In the last years, with the appearance of new information technologies, the code "e" has been used to talk about to all the activities related to computer science and electronic format.
Internet has revolutionized the distance education at all levels. It has appeared e- learning or virtual education, as a new way of learning, complementary to classroom teaching and as substitute of the present education.
E-learning has a lot of definitions, possibly because there isn't a single type of e- learning. A general definition shows the "learning" made by means of WEB technologies, or through an preinstalled software in a computer with multimedia capacity, either in a synchronic way (separated student and source on time: auto- formation), or in a synchronic way (connected student and source in real time, a "virtual class ").
WHY E-LEARNING? Internet has been widely used for less then ten years; however, it has changed the contents of many concepts in our lives as a modern communication tool. Many common concepts such as government, trade, democracy and learning have gained new meanings by taking the prefix "e". E-learning or web-based education is one of the important concepts and opportunities provided by the Internet. The concept of distance learning actually emerged much before than the Internet; actually, it is said to be as old as education.
The distance learning models administered via letters, press, television and CDs have ended up with practical and successful results. As Internet is global, unlimited and open to public, the teaching applications planned for the Internet environment has a potential of moderating the nature of distance
ARTICLE INFO
Received: 02 August 2018 Accepted: 08 October 2018 Published: 31 October 2018
KEYWORDS
e-learning, active learning, synchronic, off line,
distance education,
collaboration,
significant,
virtual class,
web-based,
interactivity.
learning. It seems that it will be the only distance learning tool of the near future. E-learning, as a new version of distance learning, is applied via the Internet technologies and involves the educational activities, which do not require the presence of the teacher and learner at the same time and place.
FROM THE CLASSROOM EDUCATION TO E-LEARNING. When compared to the classroom education, e-learning offers many advantages to students. Firstly, during the e-learning process, students have the chance to decide how log they want to be educated. All the decisions on issues such as learning speed and the intensity of the topic depends on the student. Student has the right to get in contact in case of any problems. It does not require any expenses such as transportation or accommodation. Since e-learning process is a student-centered educational system, the
learning materials could be organized according to the professional responsibilities and qualifications of the student. An effective e-learning system enables a student to determine and process his/her learning style, content, aim, current knowledge and individual skills. Therefore, person-specific education could be provided through creating individual learning styles. E-learning enables the individual to plan and direct his/her own learning process, so each student takes the responsibility of his/her own learning.
EVALUATION. It is important to remember that evaluation is considered the method of verification of assimilation of the contents, and it allow us "to guarantee the learning". However, many educators say that the evaluation demands a synchronous activity between educators and students; but in the distance education this perception cannot be applied. For example, in the case of web pages, the situation presents some interesting dimensions: The Online evaluation can be made using active programming tools in Web, but we must remember that the permanence in front a monitor produces a decreasing level in attention and concentration, and at the moment of an evaluation the cybernauta student may escape of the evaluation disconnecting the device.
Thus, Educators must coordinate evaluations "Offline", where they can use a variety of evaluation instruments. The development of learning instruments can be made on line as much as out of line.
A valid alternative is to give the evaluation via Web, for its later downloading, and to give to the student the possibility of presenting its results through the same via.
Principals characteristics must have the proposed model of formation:
• E-learning must offer to the students varied options of INTERACTIVITY: interaction with other students, teachers, so with contents and activities of the course.
• E-learning must contribute to COLLABORATION between students, fomenting task groups, in which the students must use different synchronous and asynchronous tools to communicating.
• E-learning must incorporate special elements facilitating SIGNIFICANT LEARNING, using conceptual maps and case-studies.
• E-learning must promote the ACTIVE LEARNING by means of the development of individual and group tasks that the students to practical accomplishments lead.
Online instructional programs are increasingly taking the place of traditional educational methods as businesses seek to cut their training costs. As these programs have proliferated, different online learning approaches have evolved to take advantage of the latest technology.
"Everything that you would have done in the olden days we have found a way ... to do electronically or online," says the founder, CEO and owner of Kaleidoscope Training and Consulting. "We don't drive to the training center and sit in a physical classroom."
Though many corporate educational pro- grams continue to depend on traditional methods, high-tech approaches are finding purchase. According to a survey by Training magazine, 28.5 percent of corporate instructional hours were delivered via online or computer-based technologies in 2014, up from 18.5 percent in 2009.
The switch to online approaches is taking hold locally as well. LPA Software Solutions LLC, which specializes in teaching the use of IBM software, originally did so solely by traditional means. LPA instructors spent as much as five days at customers' sites—no matter where they were—training their employees.
"From a customer perspective, there's a cost to that," says Rich Chester, LPA's Di- rector of Business Intelligence Practice. "From an instructor wear-and-tear side ... there's a cost."
About three years ago, LPA began looking into replacing some of its traditional courses with those taught online. Nowadays, about 10 percent of the firm's courses are given at least in part over the Internet. Many of those courses use a blended learning approach, in which students interact with their instructors and then participate in online coursework.
It is widely accepted that an effective eLearning course is the one which is learner-centric and can complement the learning needs. Creating an effective and engaging eLearning course does require some designing principles which are helpful to Instructional designers and can live up to the learner's requirements.
It is essential for the Instructional designers to have an idea of who their learners are, their needs and what information they hope to accumulate through the course. Keeping all these factors in mind, Instructional designers should adopt certain design principles that will be greatly beneficial to the learners.
1. Develop the learning objectives effectively:
Developing the learning objectives are of key importance as they give a clear idea to the learners on what they would be achieving on completing the course. It is essential for Instructional designers to carefully analyze the inputs and prepare the learning objectives accordingly. The central theme of designing the learning objectives is to keep the learners focused and attentive throughout the course. This approach is very helpful as your course will never go in vain once your learners get motivated by the learning objectives.
2. Organize the content effectively:
Another approach to be followed is organizing the content effectively. The content should be presented in a way that is clear, relevant and unambiguous. Also, organize the content in a way that is easy to recall and retain rather than flooding your learners with heavy content. An excellent approach to organizing the content is to analyze the content first, give appropriate titles and subtitles wherever necessary and then present the content effectively. Another approach could be to chunk the data appropriately without missing on any important information. This approach enables the learners absorb and retain complex content easily.
3. Incorporate interactivities:
Learners learn better when they are involved with the course rather than just sitting back and observing the content. For this, your e-learning course has to be interactive and collaborative. Allow the learners to participate in the course by clicking and exploring the content. The interactivities can be in various forms. To name the few, it could be clicking an object or image and exploring its content, or clicking to animate an object or dragging and dropping the items to practice an exercise.
A Successful eLearning Approach
Putting resources online that support a traditional lecture course, for example PowerPoint slides, is a start but eLearning is not about just putting lecture notes online. eLearning is a paradigm shift whose introductions needs to be managed, planned and evaluated.
There are five factors (called the ADDIE Model) which are thought to contribute towards the successful implementation of e-learning:
1. Analysis: Here you will make the identification and prioritisation of the teaching needs and requirements of your students - producing a curriculum which underpins these requirements. From this specification you will identify the learning objectives and key skill development that the students will achieve through this courses of study. By closely analysing and understanding the target audience you can then decide upon what e-learning components, or tools, will support various component parts of the learning. [You might have to relate this work to an institutional Learning and Teaching Strategy or any Business Strategy of your organisation.] If you are an "e-learning pioneer" there may be a needed to assess any organisational changes, for example letters that are sent to and received from students are often filed and kept on record - what do you do with e-mails? Finally, you must produce a meaningful and effective project plan with an associated timetable for the introduction of e-learning
2. Design: From the curriculum develop and learning outcomes, produced from the above analysis, the training programme can be designed by selecting content, media and type of interactivity that best underpins these learning objectives. If you are not using a bespoke Virtual Leaning Environment (VLE) the you will need to design the user interface on to the course materials (as was designed for this small course). This will include navigation aids through the learning (Web) site and all content must be designed so that it complies with international standards for student access who may have special needs or disabilities. You may also need to include an e-learning skills element to ensure that your students can use all the various bits of communication and information technology that you have included in your course.
3. Development: This is the hard part. Here you will be putting the design into action which involves the production of any audio/video materials, writing any simulation programs, tailoring any software to meet your needs and requirements, authoring of the course content and evaluating the various external resources that will be part of the course of study. If possible, it is important that parts, or all, of the e-learning course is made available for piloting and testing with real students. This will give you early feedback on what is working, and what is not, and will allow modification to be made before launch.
4. Implementation: Here you are delivering the course. It is important that the course is promoted in a positive way - if you don't believe in what you are doing then your students will not have any confidence in the programme of study. Collect statistical and management information that may help
with any course analysis and you may need to keep some learning logs. If you are delivering a course to a large number of students then you will need to appoint skilled and appropriately trained etutor.
Establishment of virtual labs provides the chance to follow the developments in education in the world, especially for the institutions, which are financially unavailable to purchase lab equipment. Therefore, a competitive environment is created in education, which leads to sustainable development. With e-learning environments, students could continue the teacher-learner relationship from different places at different times. E-learning terminates the limitation of time and place while providing learning environments with lower expenses. In learning process, the relationship between teacher, learner and peers has great importance. Individual learning is also important, however, the efficiency of learning together could not be avoided.
Achievement depends on support and individuals need assistance in learning topics. Therefore, teachers of e-learning programs need to have a serious in-service training; because, many e-learning programs require mutual interaction via technological tools. The word "electronic" as a prefix for e-learning, does not only mean that learning occurs with technological tools but also requires the awareness in developing technologies.
So, teachers of e-learning programs need to be trained in information technologies and Internet in order to gather with their students in virtual classrooms. Additionally, they have to have the ability to administer all applications successfully and to follow the developments in pioneer countries in e-learning and distance learning.
It is also very important for teachers to be able to provide academic counseling together with their competence and expertise in information services. It should be well- understood that e-learning applications could succeed, be preferred and developed only with the participations of the teachers with above-mentioned characteristics.
E-learning 2.0 is a type of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)system that developed with the emergence of Web 2.0. It is based on the school of thought that conventional e-learning systems were based on instructional packets, which were delivered to students using assignments. Assignments were evaluated by the teacher. In contrast, the new e-learning places increased emphasis on social learning and use of social software such as blogs, wikis, podcasts and virtual worlds This phenomenon has also been referred to as Long Tail Learning. E-learning 2.0, in contrast to e-learning systems not based on CSCL assumes that knowledge (as meaning and understanding) is socially constructed. Learning takes place through conversations about content and grounded interaction about problems and actions. Advocates of social learning claim that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to others
Advantages : over a period of years students have been convinced about the advantages of the technique of learning; hence its popularity is increasing in India. Major advantages of the techniques are as below: 1 .Most convenient way to perceive degree in higher education.2.It is the flexible, self-paced method of education to attain degree.3.Saves time and can be done along with daily works.4.Can log on and complete their studies any time the student wants.5.Acquisition of technological skills through practice with tools and computers.6.No age-based restrictions on difficulty level, i.e.
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