9 Reasons Why eLearning Is Essential
Learning is the ultimate foundation of life and its evolution. This is the reason why the government has made education a mandatory fundamental right and free for all till the age of 14 (under the purview of the right to education). But, don't you think our learning and teaching methodologies need to learn too? eLearning is the new, smarter paradigm of learning, wherein concepts and knowledge are provided to the pupil in the form of online content, including images, texts, videos, 3D objects, amongst others; they tend to make learning not only better but also interesting.
The Covid Effect
Though the current pandemic situation, with its various lockdowns the world over, has mostly caused distress for businesses, eLearning businesses have seemed to find their long-awaited "ripening time." They suddenly have all the limelight with kids and parents, finding appropriate online partners to keep up the process of learning. The sudden surge in the user base of Byju’s, Vedantu, and White Hat Junior is proof.
Why Has eLearning Become Essential?
Let us first look into the exact reasons that make it a good option for learning.
1. Freedom From Boring Books And Long Texts
For centuries, kids and adults alike have been learning through books and their long text-filled chapters. More often than not, they end up getting bored. eLearning is laden with interesting images and videos. With newer app development frameworks offering 3-dimensional content also as a medium, the learning itself tends to become attractive to the learner.
2. Reaching The Grassroots Level
The internet and smartphone are now everywhere. With more than half of the world's population being smartphone subscribers already, it is the most able platform for enabling learning to reach every corner of the world, both in urban and rural population aspects.
3. Affordable Learning
The traditional learning pedagogy involves building up schools, colleges, their maintenance, salaries, etc., to provide learning to a few hundred or a few thousand students. It counts for millions of dollars in total with land or lease costs in total. Whereas, eLearning has no such requirements. In fact, once a concept is developed online, it can be viewed and utilized by millions of students worldwide. Thus, it makes education much more affordable for everyone, even governments.
4. Increases Overall Learning Efficiency
eLearning makes learning efficient. As per the learning pyramid, an average individual tends to retain 5% of knowledge gained through lectures and 10% of knowledge gained through texts. Whereas, demonstrations and practice (images, videos, and AR- VR-based simulations) have a learning efficiency as high as 40 to 70%. The learner thus tends to learn and understand way more through eLearning.
5. Equality In Learning
Learning is one of the basic rights of an individual and so is equality amongst all individuals, including students. Teachers in schools tend to be biased toward their students on the basis of caste, creed, intelligence, sex, etc. If this needs to stop, eLearning is a definite solution.
6. A Boon For The Disabled
Our society has always been biased and disrespectful toward the feeble-abled or disabled individuals. With most doors of opportunity closed to them already, accessing and finding education in an unbiased environment also becomes a task. Even though they might exist, the price tags involved are way too high. Social stigmas attached to psychological disorders like dyslexia, etc., also hamper these individuals to come out of the closet. Usage of eLearning for and by them ensures that they get an education without any inequalities.
7. Education Anytime, Anywhere
With eLearning, an individual can learn anywhere, anytime; at their own pace and availability. For instance, a keen laborer may learn to read and write after their work hours from their home. It makes education approachable overall and easy to access for anyone and everyone.
8. Enables Safer Learning
Earlier kids could learn about experiments by experimenting in chemistry labs, and mechanical engineers could actually see the automotive parts only on the job. 3D simulations within eLearning are now offering an option to practice all this and more through online simulations and allow the learner to go as deep into their concepts of choice as they want.
9. Self-Learning
eLearning has been helping develop a comprehensive self-learning pedagogy wherein the learner can explore a concept they may like as per their pace and interest, without any need of a teacher or formal school. So, if an engineer wants to learn art formally, they could just go online and learn about it without any hesitation whatsoever; there would be no one judging.
All-in-all, eLearning is basically empowering both the learning and the learner simultaneously.
Where Should You Draw The Line?
eLearning is undoubtedly making learning accessible, approachable, affordable, and fun. But, this does not mean that it does not have its own set of downsides. Way too much screen time (an issue with all kids and adults alike) could hamper the eyesight and focus aspects of the learner. Also, eLearning does not provide scope for social interaction and face-to-face discussions amongst learners, which in itself are a source of learning (though, technology seems to provide them with learning-related chat forums and video call options).
Creating a delicate balance somewhere in between still rests on the parents and the users. Keeping this in mind, there is no room for doubt that the era for eLearning is here, and if you have not already adopted it, you need to find ways to do it ASAP.
