Online education is an education system which is designed to provide the education to those students who cannot join the institutions. It is also known as distance learning and E-learning as well.

Origin

The University of London was the first institution which started this system of education in 1858. More institutions conducted online education system around the globe after the success of this system in Great Britain. In most countries, Open University is the widely used term for such institutions, which are using such sort of the education system.

Working Mechanism

Online education system uses different mediums to deliver the courses and basic syllabus of specific course to the students. Students can get all of their assignment, notes, and projects for research and lectures regarding their courses. There is no need of class room for such sort of activity.

These sources include the internet, CD's, TV and radio channels and mail. Students can communicate with their teachers or instructors via using the internet. Special chat rooms are made for students, where they can join their other mates and instructors to obtain the help about their study. Many universities have their own TV channels by which they broadcast the lectures and programs, containing the study material. TV channels have proven significant to promote this system of education. Although, many new sources of media have been discovered yet radio is a still popular way to deliver the lectures to students, because everyone has access to the radio in any country. It's broadcast can be heard at long distances. In many counties, Mail is used to distribute to online education courses as well.

Other new and modern mediums for the online education system are mp3 players, PDA's and Smart Phones. After completion of the courses, exams are conducted at examination centers, or they may also be given online as well.

Benefits and Advantages

• The biggest advantage of online education is that it provides comfort to students who can't be able to join the universities and institutions for study because of their personal reason and jobs.
• It provides the boons of education to those students who live far away from any proper institute.
• It fuels the economy by producing a skillful youth and graduates that are willing to serve the nation.
• It is cheap. So, many poor students can get the education by this system.
• It helps to produce the literate nation.

This system is emerging as a new mean to provide the student the facility of education and skills. The progress of technology is strengthening this education system. Without the shadow of doubt, we can say distance learning will be the future of education. Every new mean of communication is making it strong. According to surveys, online education will be the popular mean to get education in the entire world in the future.

By: Vicky John

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More college students than ever are turning to the internet for their education and with good reason. For traditional and nontraditional students, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and even more specialized technical training, the internet and online learning offers many new opportunities for students of all kinds. Because almost every home and business has access to the internet, online college education has become a possibility for a much wider variety of students. This provides an easy, convenient way for students to further their education from their own homes. The popularity of online universities is evident in their enrollment. Some universities have over 100,000 students.

Online college education is especially useful for nontraditional students. Many students returning to college at an older age must juggle a full time job and family as well as their education. An online education allows these students to learn and earn their degree on their own time, as opposed to being required to be in classes at a certain time each day. As a college education becomes more important for career advancement, many people have realized that they need more than a high school diploma. For these older students, it is not practical for them to return to a college campus to ear their degree. These students will benefit from an online education.

However, earning a degree online is not only for nontraditional students. With the rising cost of tuition, many traditional students find that they need to work a full time job in order to afford a college degree. For these students, an online degree provides the schedule flexibility they will need for earning any degree they choose. Many students also enjoy the freedom an online education provides in their choice of location. They are free to live in the same area, without having to move to the location of their college or university.

An online college education is also particularly useful for graduate students in earning master’s or doctorate degrees. For students who have already incurred student loan debt and need to work full time jobs, an online education provides the flexibility they need to be able to earn a degree as they work full time. Online education also provides post-graduate students with an opportunity to remain in the same location while receiving their degree. Many times it is a struggle to find a university that offers the advanced degree a student seeks within the student’s area. Earning a degree online eliminates this problem.

One valuable tool to use in searching for an appropriate online university is [http://www.online-training-education.net]. By using [http://www.online-training-education.net], students are able to find a wide variety of online colleges, universities, and training programs. More employments fields than ever require advanced degrees or training, and online education is an easy, convenient way of achieving the education necessary. Using [http://www.online-training-education.net] is a good way to find the particular degree or training you will need from the appropriate online education program. For students who are seeking to earn an bachelor, master’s, or doctorate degree or who are looking for further specialized training, online education is an important option to consider.

By: Julie Clark

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Online education was reviewed three years ago preceded by Oscar Wilde's quotation "The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever". My intention was to amuse, rather than to denigrate online education, although the conclusions reached in the literature at that time about its success were mixed. This special issue comprises a number of articles mainly from people working in various parts of the world; content and technology are nicely balanced.

You will notice that there is a noticeable trend towards getting to grips with the difficult but essential matter of evaluation discussed by Merisotis and Phipps. James Merisotis and Ronald Phipps are senior staff members of the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington.

There seem to be roughly equal number of enthusiasts and skeptics so the conclusions of Merisotis and Phipps are unsurprising. During their review they unearthed "several hundred articles, papers, and dissertations" and list what they consider to be the shortcomings of research on the subject. They believe that "more emphasis has been placed on the Utopian possibilities of the technology and its potential to do as well as classroom-based instruction, but not enough pragmatism has been applied to allow for a discussion of online education's practical implications as a supplement to enhance teaching and learning". They also believe that technology can "leverage faculty time but it cannot replace most human contact without significant quality losses".

Gordon Joyes and Rachel Scott from the Centre for Teaching Enhancement at the University of Nottingham write about the inadequacies of teachers. They are commenting on a ten-university European project called SteelCAL. New learning technologies are not effectively "embedded in the day to day practice of learning and teaching in most higher educational institutions... the main reason is that many academics have had no training and little experience in the use of communications and information technology as an educational tool". Note that Joyes and Scott mention under "Full Evaluation" that they are comparing "the effectiveness of SteelCAL with an experimental group of students to a matched control group who are taught traditionally". It will be interesting to hear exactly how they do it. As they say this exercise is "difficult to organize".

Dr. Martin Oliver, a member of the higher education research and development unit at University College, London, describes the difficulties of evaluating online teaching and learning. In talking about the importance of evaluation he says: "The drive to evaluate has not been matched by support and training for the practitioners who are supposed to carry out these processes". He concludes that the issues raised in his article "represent only the starting point for an ongoing discourse on the evaluation of online learning and teaching".

Anthony Rosie's article is about his experience covering "meaningful engagement and the enjoyment of learning" following the ideas developed by Biggs who suggests that "Relational knowledge involves students in developing systems of interconnection between concepts and learning approaches with teaching as a contributor to this linkage".

Bernard Scott from the Centre of Educational Technology at De Montfort University talks about the CASTE system for course design and the matter of "conversations" between system and student. Scott was associated with Gordon Pask who died in 1996 and was regarded as a founding father of Cybernetics. The Web of Science shows that Pask's 1976 book about Conversation Theory has been cited 66 times since it was published. CASTE is being used at De Montford as part of a master's level program in learning and teaching.

Diana Thompson and Garry Homer are situated at the University of Wolverhampton which is also active at other sites in Shropshire notably at the new town of Telford. Wolverhampton and Telford are two of the few large towns in one of the most rural counties in England with a widely dispersed population mainly engaged in agriculture. The authors describe the way in which IT training is carried out at all levels for people in the county.

Mr. M.J. Wood is the enterprising head teacher of a Maidstone secondary school which recently won an award for its Web site. He is under no illusions about what has to be done "on a scale of 1 to 20 for measuring the potential use of IT in teaching and learning. I would not be confident to place us beyond point 1". He comments on the climate of opinion at home: "If parents realize that there is a shortage of text books in a school they will be quick to complain but as yet they see access to computers as a luxury. One of our teachers recently discovered that 24 pupils out of a teaching group of 25 have access to the Internet at home. I suspect that one Christmas in the near future our pupils' stockings will be filled with cheap hand-held devices which, among other features, will provide Internet access".

By: Mathew Simond

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