Wednesday, May 31, 2006

advantages of e-learning

Advantages of E-Learning


There are many advantages of e-learning, including:

Greater productivity since staff will not have to spend time traveling to courses

Increased profitability. Staffs who are better trained in technical and personal development areas will be able to better identify and understand problems areas when they see them.

Enhanced employee loyalty. Studies have shown that professional development is one of the major reasons why staff stay or leave a firm.

Speed. You won’t have to wait for the course or multiple copies to be sent to your firm. Once ordered on line, it will be immediately available for review and use.

Convenience.
Training will be available 24/7. Staff and partners will be able to fit it into their schedule without sacrificing client time.

Information from a greater variety of sources. The Internet offers more possibilities and opportunities than can be imagined. These will only increase within the next few years.

Increased access for lifelong learners.

E-Learning encourages the development of an independent learning culture.

E-Learning enables more engaging materials to be created for a range of abilities and preferred learning styles.

Learners work collaboratively to identify solutions and test their conceptual understanding through peer-to-peer discussion.

Effective use of interactive functions in some technologies can engage and motivate learners, reducing disengagement with repetitive tasks. Learners can participate kinaesthetically to reinforce their learning.

Asynchronous interaction. Unlike face-to-face or telephone conversations, electronic mail does not require participants to respond immediately. As a result, interactions can be more succinct and to-the-point, discussion can stay more on-track, and people can get a chance to craft their responses. This can lead to more thoughtful and creative conversations.


Group collaboration. Electronic messaging creates new opportunities for groups to work together, creating shared electronic conversations that can be thoughtful and more permanent than voice conversations. Sometimes aided by on-line moderators, these net seminars can be powerful for learning and problem-solving.

New educational approaches. Many new options and learning strategies become economically feasible through online courses. For instance, the technology makes it feasible to utilize faculty anywhere in the world and to put together faculty teams that include master teachers, researchers, scientists, and experienced professional developers. Online courses also can provide unique opportunities for teachers to share innovations in their own work with the immediate support of electronic groups and expert faculty.

Integration of computers. The online learner has access to a computer, so computer applications can be used without excluding some participants. This means, for instance, that a mathematical model implemented in a spreadsheet can easily be incorporated into a lesson and downloaded so all participants can run, explore, and refine the model and then share their findings and improvements.

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