The online education marketplace is rapidly expanding across the world. Technology companies are developing and deploying platforms to meet both the student’s needs and higher educational institution’s desires. This is a paradigm shift in how education will be delivered in the near future. The future looks extremely bright when it comes to online education across the globe.
There are so many factors why you should explore online education such as; convenience to attend and complete assignments on your own time, reduce expenses associated with driving or commuting to a ground campus, and the safety of knowing you are in your home and community.
The Convenience of Online Education:
One of the top reasons students should consider online education is the convenience factor. We have seen this shift in workplaces allowing employees to work from home and this is no different in the online education delivery method being used today.
I recall waking up at 7 am to attend an economics class during my undergraduate days. I thought to myself 7 am that is too early and I don’t learn well early in the morning.
Nowadays, online education is asynchronous, meaning you learn at your pace and time. This can be critically important for those with busy schedules such as working part-time, having a family of your own, or helping out with other family or personal obligations.
Higher education TV commercials focus on this convenience factor, why because it is the main reason why students choose online education. Many of us have become accustomed to conveniences in our daily lives. Why should educational learning be any different?
Online educational learning offers flexibility in student's schedules. This allows many to pursue full-time or part-time jobs. Being employed while attending school helps students develop a work ethic in the workplace while and earn income to help offset educational costs. You may even find that your employer will help pay for some of the costs of higher education.
Many students attending higher education have other obligations in their lives. For instance, many may be caring for older adults or younger children or helping out take care of brothers or sisters. A traditional ground campus schedule may prevent this as issues arise.
Traveling for work or pleasure can cause issues with a typical ground campus environment. Remote online learning allows for students to complete their work without being penalized for missing class.
Flexibility to Work Full-Time:
Many traditional educational ground campus programs have classes throughout the typical workday. This can allow those who need to work full-time can have the flexibility to attend classes and complete assignments around their work schedule.
Course offerings may overlap times or cause complications on campus. An online education format usually allows students the ability to take classes without any time restrictions. In many online programs, it can be set out for the student ahead of time to eliminate the need to go to the registrar’s office and register for classes in person.
There are many students who need to or want to work full-time while attending school. Working full-time offers many benefits such as; earning income, tuition reimbursement from their employer, and gaining real work experience to complement their educational training. Online education offers this flexibility many full-time workers need in order to complete their degree.
Cost of Online Education:
The costs of higher education continue to rise and outpace inflation. Many online educational programs are offering fixed rates to help a student pursue their dream of gaining a degree while controlling the costs. This helps all students understand the cost of obtaining a degree and budget to meet these financial needs.
As mentioned previously, employers may offer a subsidy to help and encourage further growth opportunities in their company. You would definitely want to consider what your employer offers and the requirements while considering online education.
Commuting to and from a campus adds additional costs for a student. Learning online allows students to be effective anywhere across the globe assuming they have the capabilities to access their courses and platforms. In certain regions, there may be other costs associated with commuting such as parking, tolls, fuel costs, car maintenance, and various snacks or drinks to make it through a 1-3 hour class.
Additional costs to consider attending a ground campus may include; childcare, physical books, shipping costs for the books, and various on-campus fees (technology-related fees).
COVID 19 Impact:
We are living through one of the deadliest super viruses our society has seen. This virus has been disrupting everything from our daily work schedules to how students attend college. Attending college should be safe and many are now turning towards online education for their college careers.
Safety should not have to be considered when choosing higher education. Yet, here we are all trying to stay safe. Even after the COVID 19 becomes less dangerous due to pending vaccinations, we will still have new viruses and illnesses that will arise in the future. Online education helps to reduce these dangerous viruses from being spread.
Colleges and Universities are ramping up their education delivery using online platforms. This is not a function of just the current virus, but also the trends of the future. We may see every single College and University across the globe offer online educational programs.
Each year we see other flu seasons break out and expose many college students on-ground campuses. In an online learning environment, students can avoid many of these illness outbreaks in a traditional classroom. If students are feeling ill they are still able to attend classes while sick without the risk of getting others sick.
Technological Advancements in Education:
There are numerous learning management systems (LMS) being developed by technology companies for Colleges and Universities as stated previously. We will explore these platforms from a high-level to provide you with what to expect when considering online education.
Even when you enter the workforce you may already have seen these platforms being used by corporations to deliver training for new and existing employees. You will have an advance over a peer that did not attend an online format.
We have personally tested and reviewed each one to help our future students learn about the strengths and weaknesses. You may experience a different response, but we were mostly concerned with usability, support, online training, and performance.
Free or Open Source Learning Management Systems:
These are some of the top three free or open-source learning management systems currently being offered to online students.
Moodle - Based on reviews, Moodle scores very high for recommending to others, usability, performance, and being able to scale. While their challenges can be found in the support they provide and online training.
Canvas - Canvas ranks very well with support as well as usability and likely to recommend to others. Some of their areas of concern can be online training and the ability to scale.
Google Classroom - This platform generally scores well across the board based on reviews. Similar to the other two platforms their online supports tend to rank the lowest for them.
It is important when researching online education that you learn more about the platform and learning management system currently being used within the College or University. It can be important to understand if they may be shifting towards another platform in the future.
Commercial Learning Management Systems:
As the demand for online learning and education continues to grow, companies have taken notice and created new platforms and learning management systems. Functionality and performance are key elements included for these additional costs.
Blackboard - This LMS scores very well on usability, but struggles to perform as well with support and online training.
Connect (McGraw-Hill) - While the performance and usability are strong, the LMS struggles with online training and support.
All of these learning management systems allow potential online students the ability to test out the platform and gain a comfort level prior to signing on to a particular higher education institution. It should be noted that many of the LMS (if not all) scored lowest on online training and support.
I would suggest that online support and training are constantly being developed and enhanced. We attempt to research and review these platforms annually and each year they score higher in our opinion. As you can imagine, the learning curve for new platforms can take some time and energy to learn and become proficient with. Focus on asking questions early and often to decrease this learning curve.
Conclusion:
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article as you consider launching your online academic careers. The main advantages of online learning include; convenience, cost, technology, and the impact global diseases are having on student’s health. We expect many more Colleges and Universities to develop new and expanding on their current online learning offerings to students.
Each individual is different and learning in an online format maybe even more appealing than originally thought. We always recommend additional research to explore starting your online education process and our goal was to highlight several of the benefits of online education.
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