Issues in the Different Elearning Online Dimensions

All elearning online features must be designed to help students understand and comprehend the lessons they must take. It must help them achieve their learning goals, however, I believe it also true that not every one is suited for this type of learning and this can also be attributed to the different issues in various dimensions of electronic learning.

The first dimension of virtual learning is of course the institutional dimension. This involves the character and the flexibility of the trainer or other teachers that takes part in the electronic course if there is one. I would ask myself, are the instructors, tutors and as well as the technical staff available during the online sessions? I should know if they hold discussions well despite the big differences in culture and background. I can attest to the fact that most online teachers of today can not handle such circumstance wherein there are racial differences in the students.


e learning development tools

The next is the management and technological dimension. This discusses about the nature and flow of the electronic course itself. Can it the course handle various activities? What tasks can it do and how many students can it accommodate simultaneously? The problem the most students, like me, encounter today is the slow notification from the course. This is partially due to the time differences of the students involved in a session since most programs are assigned to give instruction, examination and key answers at two or three designated time slots only. I know this would also deal with the broad descriptive aspects of the course such as its resources, design and evaluation of the whole subject during the end session.

The pedagogical and ethical dimension deals with the method of teaching and learning applied by the course or the teacher. Does the course provide a clear direction? Am I informed of what I should do at every part of the whole subject they are taking? Would it contribute to my behavior or only the methodical part of learning? The issue with this is that the ethical influence of elearning online is weak, partly to blame for its lack of physical connection on my part. “The monitor is still just a monitor with or without faces in them,” so to speak.

How Music Elearning Development Tools will Work

A lot of my musician friends think that elearning for music is a silly idea. They think that having to go through online courses will not provide the same musical learning experience that traditional lessons can offer. However, I totally disagree with them because all it takes to make music elearning development tools work is to choose and combine the right types of tools, applications and software available to us today.

elearning development tools

The technology we have now is powerful and advanced enough to accommodate the challenges of musical education. If you go online, you will see that we have a lot of useful innovations and media that can be utilized as development tools for elearning. We have instant messengers, video calling applications, podcasts, instructional videos, music players and so many more. All of these things address music’s need for visual, auditory and tactile teaching and learning methods.

For example, teachers can record a video of themselves demonstrating how to play chords for a guitar. They can integrate text slides into the video if they want to further describe a theory or a tip to reinforce their demonstration. Students can access this pre-recorded instruction, pick up their guitars, and follow the teacher. They can even pause and rewind the video at their own discretion in case they have difficulty following the instruction in one take. With just a simple video, students were able to use their visual, auditory and tactile sense for optimal learning experiences.

The trick to ensure that music elearning development tools will work is to carefully choose what applications or programs you will need and then combine them to provide learners with meaningful learning experiences. You can create a course that features an instructional video like my example above, a listening quiz using a music player, and an instant messaging so the student can interact with the teacher or other learners. As long as the course designer considers the needs and preference of the students, this process will be a piece of cake!

Being a Teacher is Hard

You know, electronic learning is not only for students. In fact, before any student is to be taught the lesson, it’s the teacher that has to learn it first especially in this day and age when sometimes being a teacher means being a student all over again.

Any elearning company is primarily composed of teachers. I know this because one of my sisters works in a company that uses virtual learning to teach Koreans how to properly speak English. Sometimes, her work requires her to teach at home. This is where my cousin and I do a funny appearance behind my sister’s room whenever the door is left open. Then we hide if my sister suddenly looks back at an empty hallway, only the find us and then shut and lock the door tight. I bet some of her Korean students will suddenly see a paradigm shift in the lesson.

Now back to teachers. Besides technicians, software developers and, of course, the management, teachers are the ones that keep work going inside any elearning company. They may have the software, the good connection and good system to top it off, but no one’s going to steer the wheel of the business if the teachers are gone. This is me, typing on the influence of my economics textbook my professor recommended.

Although I have to say, online learning is really a strange business especially when the fact is, there are students who can’t even adapt to the classroom type of education. And that goes double for teachers. Why would they prefer this kind of teaching? Whatever happened to the dream of being present and teaching kids? But then, I figured, it’s also a tough life and not everybody gets what they want. Some don’t even have the privilege to take up college. This is made even tougher for the teachers since there are a lot of faulty connections and ill-fated equipments in the job’s nature. Bring an umbrella and expect a rainfall of tears and angst when the connection goes haywire. Not only are these people expected to lecture kids who are the actual students but they also need to teach older and working people who are not actually enrolled students. Add the fact that they haven’t really mastered some of things they teach.

Reminder to self: don’t be a teacher if you can’t handle sacrifice.

iTunes U Elearning Online for Developing Countries

Education is such an expensive commodity; coming from an Ivy League school, educational costs could be exponentially higher. So when I heard about iTunes U elearning online or iTunes University where in a number of Ivy League universities enabled their class lectures to be accessed for free, I had to see what its all about.

As a student in a developing country like the Philippines, quality education is hard to come by especially if you’re just an ordinary student with no rich daddy to pay for college tuition. Unlike in the United States where students are given student loans that they can repay later after they graduate, in this country, you would be lucky to qualify for student aid that only covers a fraction of the cost of tuition.


corporate learning solutions

Another criticism I have of the educational system here is the lack of libraries especially for students like me who study in a public university. Private universities have their libraries stocked with all the latest books but you’d be hard-pressed to find reliable public libraries that aren’t dilapidated and didn’t look like it was about to be condemned. Needless to say, there are no public Internet stations where poor students can browse the net for free like in the US. We all had to rely on the expensive Internet cafes strewn across the city. This is why I think students like me should take advantage of this free but reliable educational program.

Lectures from actual classes at prestigious universities around the world can be accessed through iTunes. I had iTunes in my old computer because I was given a second hand iPod Nano with video for my birthday. The content in these classes were amazing and I can hardly believe that all these are free! There were open courses on almost every subject imaginable. I especially liked the linguistics classes because I’m interested in languages.

I highly recommend this elearning online course especially for university students in developing countries. I hope the government can provide more internet facilities for free because students would truly benefit from free courses. iTunes U truly opened my mind to the possibilities of studying interesting courses that does not even exist in my country.

LiveMocha Review—an Elearning Software Solutions for Language Education

After stumbling upon LiveMocha elearning software solutions for language education, I decided to give it a shot. What did I have to lose? I was interested to learn a new language, but did not have the time, or the money to commit to a traditional classroom language class. Fortunately for me, elearning gives me the benefit of learning a language effectively and easily for a whole lot less from the comfort of my own home, at a time that’s favorable to my hectic schedule.


learning management system

It was my first time to try out an elearning software solutions, and I was both excited and doubtful. LiveMocha offers you a lot of languages to learn, which I appreciated. There are 35 languages in all to choose from. After much deliberation, I decided to take up Nihonggo because I used to study it back in college, but had to drop the class because I was falling behind in my major subjects. I took this as an opportunity to finish what I started and learn something I’ve always wanted to master ever since I was younger. Another great thing about LiveMocha is the user-friendly interface of the interactive courses. I kind of expected computer versions of my old Nihonggo class modules which are intimidating and teetering on boring. Much to my delight, the course offers a wide array of activities. There are listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities and all of them were extremely engaging. I thought that this elearning innovation is extremely useful, especially since it offers a lot of free online content, and focuses first on the use of informal language as opposed to starting on the lengthy rules of formal sentence construction.

I haven’t completely explored LiveMocha because I’ve only started using it recently, and so far, I’ve noticed only one flaw, which is that it requires you to submit output too soon. It doesn’t give you much time to master a lesson because of the immediate evaluation.

Tips to Overcome Expertise Reversal Effect for Elearning Course Design

Normally, you would assume that a certain elearning online course design would work well for everyone and that all you have to change is the content. But did you know that a course should be designed differently for novices than for experts? After all, if you think about it, you can’t expect a novice student to learn a new skill or technique as fast and as effectively as an expert. If you reverse the situation by treating advanced students as novices, it may have a detrimental effect on their learning level. This is known as the expertise reversal effect.

The expertise reversal effect is when a person’s level of prior knowledge greatly affects or influences the effectiveness of learning materials and their content. This implies that instructional approaches that are meant for beginners will be ineffective or even detrimental for advanced students. This is based on the theory of cognitive load which states that the limitations of a functional memory emphasize the need to avoid overloading it. However, the thing is that whatever induces cognitive load in an expert is different for a novice.


elearning development

How does it happen? If an advanced learner is fed redundant information given to beginners, it could induce unnecessary cognitive load. This would distract the learner from learning new material effectively.

Here are some elearning online design strategies to overcome or avoid the expertise reversal effect:
• Allow skipping of extra steps and detailed guidance
• Use a design model that encourages independent exploration
• Provide support for informal methods of learning
• Allow students to choose the level they want to enter
• Let the student perform a specific task to determine their strengths and weaknesses

There is no one size fits all in every situation; just like there is no one perfect course or curriculum for everybody. In creating elearning online material, there has to be a set rule for more advance students so they can move and learn at their own pace.

My Life as an Elearning Open University Student

I am really thankful that Open Universities are making it more convenient for working professionals like me to finish a degree. Because it’s elearning, I am not obliged to spend so much time attending classes. Instead, professors provide modules and videos for me to learn the lesson. It is so convenient because I learn on my own pace and I’m not forced to learn in the same manner as others. If I don’t get the lesson, I can always go through the materials they have provided. If there are some points that are hard for me to grasp, I can always email my professor or contact my OU classmates on Twitter for support. In my years of studying, this OU program is definitely the best I have taken.


elearning online

I only need to finish a few more modules to finally get my management degree and honestly, I would not mind enrolling in another program at OU. If given the chance, time, and resources, I would like to take a teaching program since it is offered as one of their elearning courses. It’s a good degree that I can put to use in the future. When I suddenly feel tired and jaded of managing my business, I would want to teach and share what I have learned through my stay at OU. Aside from that, teaching is also a marketable skill that I can use to earn extra dollars.

On the other hand, being an OU student is not always easy. Although, we don’t have to go to school physically every day like others in the mainstream programs do, we still have hurdles to overcome. Poor motivation is one. I have always believed that being in this program requires determination and intrinsic motivation. It would be almost impossible to finish a degree or achieve qualifications if you are not driven to finish reading the modules and working on the drills, especially that you are the one monitoring yourself. That’s why I am pretty proud of myself for having gone this far. I know that when I finally receive my diploma, the fruit of my labor, I would be more motivated to reach for higher goals and more elearning courses.

Elearning—Review of “If Instructional Designers Ran the World”

I came across an interesting web blog that talked about what would happen to the world if instructional designers ran it. Some would think that it seems like a crazy idea, but in my opinion, it is not entirely impossible considering how far the arms of elearning have extended. In fact, elearning has become so popular that diverse kinds of industries have started to implement its use in their businesses since it provides them with the benefits of ease, convenience and inefficiency. In addition to that, there are now so many software and applications available to almost everyone from all over the world thanks to the internet. So not only has elearning gone far enough to transcend the boundaries of industries, but of nations as well.

Now, the entry was not strictly formal—that is to say, it actually came across as something quite comical. However, one cannot deny that every point is actually plausible no matter how funny it sounds. What I liked about this entry the most was how it gave insight on the simple truths behind elearning. Here were the author’s points on what would happen if instructional designers ran the world taken from theelearningcoach.com:


elearning online

(1) All highway and road signs would make sense because they would be constantly revised until they are perfect.
(2) Everyone would know their objectives because if instructional designers ran the world, the analysis and identification of personal objects would be a requirement before doing anything at all.
(3) Every device would have an instructional diagram on its surface.
(4) There would be job aids or manuals for every life situation.
(5) Statistics will no longer lie because it is not instructionally appropriate. Lying about statistics violates the ID Code.
(6) Multimedia incompatibility issues would be outlawed. If instructional designers had their way, there would only be one video format and one audio format.
(7) If children misbehave, they would be required to get online attitudinal training.
(8) Instead of saying “There’s an app for that”, people would say, “There’s a course for that”.

Reviewing Elearning for Learner Development

Elearning is significant in today’s progressively modern society in such a way that it keeps up with the changes and evolution of the times. It is unlike traditional learning which is oftentimes viewed as an inconvenience, especially by those whose lifestyles are so fast-paced that they barely have the time to give it the necessary and just attention it deserves. If getting an education did not greatly contribute to better career opportunities, then a lot of people would’ve forgone it completely. I know I would’ve.

It has a huge, specific role in the development of the learners of today. First of all, it provides real-time access. It is inevitable that participants are required to align their schedule with that of the training calendar when it comes to live learning events. But with electronic learning, this inconvenience is eliminated because it can be accessed anytime, anywhere.


e learning

Second, it makes failing so much easier. Since there are no other people around to witness your mistakes, then there is increased initiative and courage to explore and test new ideas. With the right feedback, this can be really useful and beneficial.
Third, there is improvement in retention. The combined use of multimedia and instructional design makes the learning experience rich. Since it is likewise repeatable, and utilizes examinations and practice activities, learners are able to retain content much easier and become more productive in the process.

Fourth, learning is customized and personalized. It cannot be denied that every individual has his own preference. The same can be said for his choices in learning, topics and tools. Elearning allows learners to enjoy a heightened sense of control in choosing what they want to learn whenever they want to in any place they wish.
If this educational innovation helps people become well-developed learners, then a lot of opportunities become more accessible to them which would ultimately lead to covetable success despite the tough economic climate.

Can I Use Joomla for Elearning Content Management?

This question has been bugging those who want to play around with Joomla for a long time. Since Moodle is taking off as the leading LMS in the industry, many Joomla users would like to know if the CRM tool could also be used in elearning. I have a quick answer to help you guys regarding this intriguing question. In this blog entry, I tried to cover various options to answer the question.

CMS tools like Joomla can also be used in elearning content management and can be used as an LMS. On the other hand, take note that Joomla, being a CMS tool, has limitations when used for LMS purposes. It just lacks so much requirements and features that one needs in putting up an elearning content management system.


elearning

If you are already thinking of using Joomla as your LMS, you must be prepared to add an LMS package for it to work at its best. Additional packages like that are often pricey. And if I were you, I would rather buy an LMS instead of a CRM tool that requires you to buy more packages to make it complete.

However, if you are planning on giving video demonstrations instead of text-based elearning content, using Joomla would do, but using it alone may lead to limitations in the future if you happen to consider expanding your contents.

Another option that you can consider is combining Joomla with a super LMS like Moodle. The best thing about it is that you do not have to be that techy to integrate the two. I actually found this thread on Joomla! Discussions forum that talks about steps on integrating the two but you have to be a member of the forum to see the content.

If you want to know more about this interesting systems integration, you can log on to http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=50643.

outsourcing helps