What Exactly Is E-Learning?
By Cameron Young
Education. It formally started when we were 3 or 4 years old at preschool and should never end. Whether it is learning a new concept or on the job learning, learning is one of the important habit anyone can grow.
You can learn through a multitude of ways from reading a book, with a mentor, or as the trend of recent; online, or e-learning. What comes to mind when you hear the term, e-learning? We’re not psychic but it probably had to do something with the Internet.
And we would agree with you. At Nuvola Academy, we like a broad definition of e-learning of,
education facilitated through technology.
For us, this eliminates technology aides that assist in learning such as a calculator or a projector. It is not to discount their utility rather they are tools whereas e-learning revolves around the actual medium. And it is for that reason, our position in the debate of the proper terminology of “e-learning” is to keep the “e” as it denotes a specific, broad subcategory within the education field.
The most important factor of e-learning is that the majority of the interactions between the instructor and student take place online. This distinction is an important one that separates a supplemental tool to support the physical classroom like a Blackboard or Canvas and a platform that is built as a virtual classroom.
Often MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) come to mind where the instructing is automated, usually through a combination of recorded lectures and quizzes. This allows the instructor to teach when they have time and the student to consume the course at their convenience
The flipside is a limited size course that is taught live through a video call. At the cost of convenience, the level of engaged learning soars. There is no standardized term for this type of course yet.
Well that is the basics of e-learning, stay tuned for our next post in this series where we will delve into an overview of industry terms.
If you want to learn more about how e-learning can work for you, click here to get in touch with Cameron Young.