As we experience another year in the digital age, it has become firmly apparent that technology has far surpassed the role of merely supplementing education; rather, it has irreversibly changed the climate for education as we know it, bringing forth radically different, innovative, and exciting ways for students to learn.
Complimenting the advent of digital education, internet access is more widespread than it has ever been, having gone from a luxury to an essentiality. In light of this, the logical step for education was to establish courses that take place online in their entirety; while they are still relatively new in the grand scheme of things, they are still more than noteworthy as an alternative to the traditional classroom setting. Luiz Rigney, an Education Executive, presents an overview of the benefits associated with online learning.
Freedom of Choice
One of the more apparent benefits of online learning is the idea that it has the potential to provide students with a greater sense of freedom. In many online courses, students are free to learn at their own pace. Whether it’s a faster one or a slower one, having this option can be crucial to meet the individual needs of any student, as in the traditional classroom they are expected to conform to the needs and pace of the collective body of students.
Additionally, online curriculum is available from virtually anywhere in the world, dissolving the previous geographical barriers to education. Now, instead of being limited to whatever physical institutions are in their immediate vicinity, students have access to the entire library of online curriculum, giving them the freedom to choose exactly which program they would like to pursue.
Personalized Learning
Another educational component that has been discovered after centuries of a traditional classroom setup is that there are several different styles of learning for students, each equally valid and distinct from one another. While it’s virtually impossible to address multiple styles of learning in this setting, online education more readily addresses these individual needs. Programs are created to cater to each style, and it’s this personal touch that helps online learning raise the bar for education as a whole.
Next, when it comes to the actual selection of online courses, students as well as their parents are free to choose curriculum based on individual requirements, creating programs that are centralized around specific strengths. For example, if a student is already fluent in a particular area, whereas in a traditional setting they might still have to go through the motions of re-learning it for the sake of the rest of the class, online this can be bypassed altogether, allowing students to focus more intently on the aspects of their learning that they would like to prioritize.
Finally, another benefit of online learning comes in the form of real-time feedback. Rather than waiting for report cards or parent-teacher conferences, some of the more advanced online programs available today are able to provide a near-constant evaluation of the student in question, ensuring that they are always at the right level appropriate for their optimal learning. This benefit also ripples to parents, as they can more easily and more frequently observe their child’s educational and personal progress.
Accessibility
In this day and age, accessibility is a must, and online learning is no stranger to this fact. When enrolled in an online program, students are free to work whenever and wherever they want, giving them a much greater flexibility. Once again, this can be equally appreciated by students and parents alike, particularly as it makes scheduling much easier for the latter when the day-to-day routines can instill a feeling of constant busyness.
Accessibility doesn’t just come in the form of location and timing for online learning, either; sometimes the benefits are felt in a social sense as well. For the quieter students who would otherwise have difficulty communicating and engaging in a traditional classroom setup, online education can act as a bridge for them: It can allow them to feel more comfortable as they are merely typing words into their computer, as opposed to speaking in front of the entire class in person.
Finally, it’s important to consider that online education will also develop both computer and internet skills for students, something that is becoming more and more critical as the years go by and the role of technology within society becomes increasingly enlarged.
No Place Like Home
Recent studies have shown that aside from all the other factors that play a role in education, comfort can have a significant impact on a student’s capacity to learn. Comfort is becoming more and more emphasized as an important aspect of learning, and online education takes to this quite naturally. The aforementioned freedom associated with it includes students being able to choose the most comfortable location to learn, often within their own homes.
Learning from home also allows parents to become more involved in their child’s education with greater ease, as they can coach and encourage from the sidelines on a much more frequent basis than a traditional school; this is an essential benefit, as it has been proven through scientific studies that students are more successful in their education with direct parental involvement.
Lastly, online education is almost entirely free from many of the distractions that we know all too well: peer pressure, detrimental social norms, and even bullying. As good as it is for students to come together and form a community, it’s important to keep in mind that they can still do this if they go the route of online education, and if anything, the experience as a whole has a greater chance of being a positive one when teachers can spend more of their time supporting and teaching, and less time trying to get students to pay attention and behave properly.
Luiz Rigney has served his community as a teacher and athletics coach for over 20 years. He has a strong emphasis on positive energy and fun in his passion for seeing children learn and grow.