Online Learning - Research Paper Example

Few would argue that one of the most dramatic and far-reaching technological developments in the 1990s is the Internet, the worldwide “network of networks”. A decade or so after the introduction of the personal computer, the Internet has produced another leap forward in terms of greater access to materials, people, and learning environments. Online learning has become one of the most important parts of the whole global educational system in the 21st century. To be clearer, I must admit that educational systems of some countries, as for example United States, Great Britain, The Netherlands etc., cannot exist without such important element as online learning. The perfect example is a research of CCA (Computer Corporation of America), 50% of higher education institutions currently provide online learning courses for their students and quantity of online students is approximately two times higher to traditional students. (http://resources.blackboard.com/scholar/general/pages/ictraining/Online_Learning.pdf) It is sure that no further progress can be achieved at individual, national and global level without using of technology, and this is especially important within education process, as it provides provisions for further development. The possibility of online learning connects this world. Little research has been done on possibilities to increase overall effectiveness of education through online tools. Therefore in this work I will answer the following questions: How does Internet technology influence scholar achievements of students and development of a student’s personality? Are the effects of online learning positive or negative? Simply speaking, what advantages and disadvantages does online learning, affecting level of student’s achievement, bring? In my paper I will try to find answers for the questions and make assumptions regarding future effect of online learning on student’s achievement. Findings & Literature review Today employers in all branches of business are especially interested in executors who are able not only work with modern technologies but also are willing to study simultaneously with working process. Such combination is possible only in case of distant or online education. Therefore leaders of the leading business stress important role of online education of future specialists as such practice will ensure constant knowledge refreshment (Kazi-Ferrouillet, 1989). Extension of online education courses requires restructuring of public education. From the one point of view this will help to prepare future specialists to the modern technological environment but there is another point of view – online education may influence performance of students and such influence maybe positive as well as negative (David, 1991). The conflict between requirements of the business world and general requirements for educational programs, which are very often can’t be met by online educational courses, is the one to be solved. There are a lot of teachers and students who support online education, teachers because they can deliver information to larger audience and students because they don’t have to attend classes (Mehlinger, 1996); for this instance online education gain stronger positions in higher and secondary school (Grimm, 1995). Online education, online educational networks and development of these trends in education have attracted special attention of the educational world. These educational techniques have already won recognition of students and teachers though they are considered to be newly developed issues, which require in-depth research to reveal their effect on general student achievement. Beasley and Waugh warned that implementation of new technology in educational process is always a risk and it needs to be tested and estimated in terms of effectiveness and students’ response. Research regarding use of technology in educational process very often has dispersed results, which makes difficult to make exact conclusion on the effect of online education on general student’s achievement (Sivin-Kachala, J., and Bialo, E.R. 1999). Taking for example one of the nationwide studies regarding online education, we can see that some trends of online educational programs were very effective in fourth and eighth grade mathematics course, but such positive result was achieved only in one research while other revealed negative effect of online education (Wenglinsky, H, 1998). To be more specific, online educational programs, which encouraged students to think about mathematics deeply increased student’s performance, while application that was built on entertaining repetitive principle led to decrease of student’s performance in mathematics. In contrast, a special research of 500 online educational programs revealed positive effects on student achievement tests resulted particularly from online tutoring courses; other uses of online facilities, such as online simulations and enrichment applications, were determined as minimal effective applications (Kulik, J.A, 1994). Counterparts of online education claim that such type of learning contributes to addictive and asocial behavior of recipients and this destructs social basis of learning. Despite positive effect of such online programs as tutorials and drill-and-practice exercises, which really encourage student’s performance, general use of internal online technology provokes asocializing, which can help to develop technical skills but never humanitarian or social. Efforts to create social environment in the Internet can solve this situation (Harasim, L., Hiltz, S.R., Teles, L., 1995). As the Internet opens absolutely new possibilities of collaborative activities in schools. Using online educational technology for collaborative practices can enhance the level to which students are socially active and productive and can encourage students’ academic conversations that increase students general educational performance (Riel, M, 1992). A analysis organized by Christmann, Badgett, and Lucking . showed that online learning programs had very seldom positive effect on achievement of students in special subjects, though they had mentioned that there were some subjects where online education donated to increase of students’ achievement, e.g. online biology course for high school (Christmann, Badgett, and Lucking, 1997). Meta-analyses by Fletcher-Flinn and Gravatt and Liao had the same results, with a very small effect of online educational courses on general student’s achievement (Fletcher-Flinn and Gravatt, 1995 and Liao, 1992). While research of Lu, Voss, and Kleinsmith presented a very positive results of online course in high school classes especially biology, anatomy and mathematics (Lu, Voss, and Kleinsmith, 1997). Other researches on this topic (Lazarowitz & Huppert, 1993). Hounshell and Hill also reported higher performance of high school students who took online course comparing their achievements to students who attended traditional classes, again special superiority was achieved in biology, covering such topics as genetics and population studies (Hounshell and Hill, 1989). Though some studies show little positive effect of online education, this type of learning process has become popular. It offers a unique opportunity for a teacher to represent variety of information to a student while online education can’t ensure proper level of control. Online applications display information in a variety of formats that can be very helpful to a student as well as to a teacher (e.g., animation, recorded speech, graphics, video, music) and help to arrange a variety of learning styles (Provenzo, Brett, & McCloskey, 1999). Online learning applications provide an opportunity for development of a constructivist approach to learning by promoting complex links between learners and delivered subject. Constructivism means educational process in context, whereby learners develop much of what they anticipate and understand as a function of their experiences (Schunk, 2000). Use of special software in online learning can change students from being mere recipients of information to active participants who make decisions about how to enhance their learning (Thorsen, 1998). Online learning applications also encourage the development of academic skills and facilitate distant learning and problem solving (Sharp, 1996). Jonassen, Peck, and Wilson suggested that "students-as-producers-of-technologies engage in much more meaningful learning than students-as-receivers-from-instructional-technologies" (Jonassen, Peck, and Wilson, p. 112) Student use of online educational applications also may provide better effect to the traditional classes or bank of classroom computers approach. When students are involved in the traditional educational process or a computer lab education, technical interaction becomes a separate activity. This may have negative influence of students’ performance as technology is not being used as an authentic integral part of learning. One of the main problems of technological education is compatibility issue. Very often hardware and software available at school are different to hard- and software available for students at home( Schacter, J, 1999). Online education can solve this problem by allowing students the same access to technology at home the same to school. Online learning creates a possibility for students to learn at any place and any time, online education has a great the potential to change the principles of teaching. Flexibility of online learning is another important benefit that influences overall students’ performance. While studying general level of students’ performance learning mathematics, researchers have concluded that the move from the traditional educational means in mathematics to online learning programs with specific notations (including algebraic symbols, but also graphs, tables, and geometric figures) can have a great effect on students’ performance. In comparison to the use of traditional educational practices, which supports only static, isolated notations, use of online learning ensures "dynamic, linked notations" which have some distinct advantages (Kaput, J, 1992): Students get an opportunity to watch rapid changes in notations just using online tools, as opposed to slowly and rewriting the changes. Students can evaluate changes of notations and results of such changes, such as modifying the value of a parameter of an equation and seeing how the resulting graph changes its shape. Students have an opportunity to relate mathematical notations to the real world data, thus giving the mathematics a greater sense of meaning. Students can get fast reply from online application if a notation is not correct. The following research was organized to determine effectiveness of online learning. Two groups of high school students alternately online educational applications to study anatomy and physiology within the course of one school year. Each group used online educational tools for two quarters and traditional materials for two quarters. Each group was taught by the same teacher and the same bulk of information was delivered to them. To measure effectiveness of each educational method, course grades were compared each educational period. Analysis proved that the students benefited from using online educational applications and were eager to proceed with such type of educational communication (Sivin-Kachala, J., and Bialo, 1999). Though it is pretty difficult to determine the main reasons of the positive outcomes, whether they were resulted by use of the online method, availability of multimedia information online or direct participation in the educational process through an opportunity to suggest improvements for the educational program As each student of the tested groups selected only one aspect of the anatomy and physiology in his or her online research, it is unlikely that participation in the online psychology/anatomy project had a strong effect on the individuals knowledge acquisition. However, as one student said about participation in the project, "You have to review the information so frequently that it is implanted in your memory." Before starting their specific projects within the online learning project, students were asked to prepare action plans. One student reported that first creating the action plan resulted in "putting more time into [the whole project] and better academic results." (Sheingold, K., & Tucker, M.S. 1990) One of the elements of online learning is an online network. A lot of learning networks have been developed for ensuring availability of online learning. For example, the AT&T Learning Circles project is a computer network for multicultural and multilingual collaborative learning which unites students from different countries to produce newsletters or other writing projects. (Riel, M, 1992) The Multimedia Forum Kiosk and SpeakEasy projects (Hoadley, C.M., Hsi, S., and Berman, B.P, 1995) form students collaborative interactions, resulting in more inclusive and gender-equitable involvement than ordinarily occurs in face-to-face classroom discussions (Hsi, S., and Hoadley, C.M, 1997). Convince Me and Belvedere systems provide students online help in distinguishing between hypotheses and evidence and to produce mature scientific explanations (Harasim, L., Hiltz, S.R., Teles, L, 1995). Recent surveys of researchers and teachers prove that students who participate in online learning networks show boosted motivation, a better understanding of subjects, and an increased willingness to meet difficult challenges (Weir, S., 1995). All researchers of online learning emphasize one thing: public education must offer students such educational services so they will be able to use technology effectively at their future workplace. Education must provide possibility for students to study new technology that is used in the business world (Davis & Henry, 1993). For this transformation to properly occur, students must be actively invited in the process, and teachers must be provided the resources and training needed to properly deliver technological knowledge to the future specialists. Thus they can boost general performance of their students and provide specialists for the national economy. However, the key to a successful partnership between educational reform and technology lies in implementation and level of extension of online learning and relative educational trends. To maximize the effectiveness of online education as a tool to enhance general students’ performance, education policymakers must foresee role of online education selectively into educational reform as part of an overall program for improvement and proceed with further research of its progress and results to improve direction constantly (Davis, M. & Henry, M.J. 1993). Conclusion As we can see problem of online learning and its effectiveness is widely represented in the dedicated works. And we can colligate pros and cons of online education in the following: Online education provides a unique opportunity for teachers and students to collaborate within educational process through using online tools. Online education ensures self-evaluation and self-control processes of students. Students get an opportunity to implement acquired knowledge in the real life mode through online educationl applications. Online education increases students’ performance in the special disciplines (such as biology, anatomy, mathematics etc.), which demand higher level of interactivity comparatively to other subjects. Online education provides an opportunity for development of a constructivist approach to learning by promoting complex links between learners and delivered subject. Online education increases effectiveness of “teacher-student” communication. Though: Online education cannot provide the same control level as traditional education. Often online education contributes to addictive and asocial behavior of recipients and this destructs social basis of learning. Online education cannot ensure high level of general educational performance. Online students should have previous online activity experience. Otherwise effectiveness of online educational course will be very low. These all factors describe online learning as an important division of the general educational system, which, if properly used, can ensure great students’ performance in the specific subjects. Bibliography 1. Christmann, E., Badgett, J., & Lucking, R. (1997). Microcomputer-based computer-assisted instruction within differing subject areas: A statistical deduction. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 16, 218-296. 2. David, J.L. (1991). Restructuring and technology. Partners in change. Phi Delta Kaplan, 73(1), 37-40. 3. Davis, M. & Henry, M.J. (1993). 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The relationship between educational technology and student achievement in mathematics. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. 28. http://resources.blackboard.com/scholar/general/pages/ictraining/Online_Learning.pdf Read More