Online Education

What are the Pros and Cons of Online Education? What is Distance Education / E-Learning? In our article titled, we discussed what distance education is, why it is used and its methods. The benefits of distance education are becoming clearer day by day. And online learning, distance education / e-learning platforms are likely to be one of the main education tools in the near future.

Here are the main Pros and Cons of Online Education:

PROS of ONLINE Education

Advantages of Distance Education / E-learning and Teaching Platforms

1. Different learning techniques

   Teaching and learning methods in formal education are limited, but in distance education / e-learning systems, tens, hundreds of different teaching and learning methods may be possible with digital tools. For example; With interactive videos, information can be better comprehended, education can be made more fun with various gamifications, and exams can be made more educational with interesting visuals.

2. Flexibility

   We can easily say that one of the most obvious advantages of distance learning is that it eliminates distances. Information or lectures that are available anytime, anywhere are usually served in short pieces. In this way, you can even evaluate the time between your other jobs. The fact that online education is modular and independent of time and place shows how flexible it is. In addition, it provides the opportunity to stop and continue wherever you want, which is not possible in formal education.

3. Access to more people, more data at the same time

   In formal education, a higher quality education can only be provided in cases where the class population is less, but there is no such difference in distance education methods. In addition, as long as he / she has an appropriate infrastructure (internet, computer, etc.), there is no data limitation in distance education.

4. Eliminates geographical constraints

   The same educational content can be accessed from different countries and different geographies. It reduces the disruption of education in areas with security problems. In extraordinary situations (war, curfew, etc.), the student’s learning can be continued. Provides options for people who are restricted to being in some communities due to cultural and religious beliefs.

5. Learning method suitable for everyone

   Formal education; It is the type of education that has thousands of different methods and the least variety of e-learning methods are still being developed. Many teachers and students may find it difficult to adopt formal education methods, but the variety of online education methods is endless. In this way, the teacher can find the most suitable teaching method and the student can find the most suitable learning method on e-learning platforms.

6. Lower costs

   When you have a distance education / e-learning platform, you pay a one-time development cost and periodically maintenance, hosting, updating, backup costs. When comparing these costs with the cost of space spent on formal education, transportation, cleaning, management and many other costs, it seems obvious that there will be significant savings with distance education. The only needs of teacher and student for distance education are internet and a computer / mobile device. Today, there is hardly anyone who does not own these devices. In other words, if you have a distance learning platform, most of the services you have to offer to teachers and students will disappear.

7. Time flexibility

   One of the benefits of distance education is related to education, teaching time. Concepts such as absenteeism and attendance, which students do not like, do not bother students in distance education systems. Inability to participate in education due to working hours, illness, family or special circumstances is eliminated. Desired amount of training can be taken at any time.

8. Performance increase in students

   According to the research of the US Department of Education (1); It has been observed that the performance of students in online education is higher than the performance in face-to-face education. Distance education / e-learning systems, which are becoming more popular day by day, offer more effective educational environments for both students and teachers.

9. Environmentally friendly

   If you think that e-learning saves only paper, then you are wrong. With distance education methods, carbon emissions caused by transportation vehicles used to go to school are also significantly reduced. (According to Open University research, this rate is around 65 percent.)

10. Disadvantaged students

    The problems faced by students with physical disabilities while attending school are not experienced in online education. In addition, these systems provide significant conveniences for individuals with communication problems, people who are afraid to speak to the community and many other disadvantaged students (provided that the e-learning platform is made accessible).

11. Tracking education

    If Learning Management Systems (LMS) are used, all transactions of teachers and students become traceable and reportable. In this way, your distance education can be improved with better results.

CONS of ONLINE Education

Disadvantages of Distance Education / E-learning and Teaching Platforms 

1. Not everyone has the discipline to manage their own education

   One of the most important advantages of distance education methods is that the person can determine his / her own training speed. In some distance learning methods, training can be paused wherever desired and repeated as many times as desired. However, this situation can also offer a negative freedom to students who do not have enough to learn and discipline. When structural features such as the time schedule and stages of education are not under the control of an instructor, this situation can be pulled in unproductive directions by the student.

2. The difficulty of developing a quality and good distance learning E-Learning system

   It is not possible to say that every distance education platform where video conferencing and training materials can be uploaded is sufficient. Many issues such as the fast operation of distance learning platforms, the regular and structured data, the audibility of the trainers and trainers, the statistics of the trainings, the reporting interfaces of these statistics; plays an important role in the quality of these systems. Realization of all these features is both difficult and requires an additional cost. However, choosing an open source LMS (Learning Management System) to develop a distance learning platform makes these things easier.

3. Technical deficiencies disrupt education

   Especially in online trainings, problems such as internet connection problems can be very annoying. Both the instructor and the student should have a good internet infrastructure in order to prevent these problems experienced in video training. Other technical problems other than internet connection can also cause disruption of education. Therefore, the maintenance, update, hosting, backup costs of a distance education platform are higher than the maintenance, update, hosting, backup costs of an ordinary website.

4. Security

   As with all software, security is an important problem in distance education platforms. In particular, distance learning platforms that issue official certificates can be attacked by malicious people. For this, it is important that the system is open source and that it is periodically maintenance, update, backup and hosting.

Pros and Cons of Online Education