Online Educational Resources - Research Paper Example

Online educational resources Abstract The popularity of online education is increasing day by day because of the immense facilities and convenience it provides to the learners. In a world which is filled with numerous kinds of engagements and commitments, it is difficult for busy people to find enough time to go to real classrooms or educational institutions to fulfil their learning dreams. For such people online education is a blessing. Online educational resources can be classified into three major different groups such as print media (E-texts and e-zines), videos (videoconferencing and video streaming) and audios (streaming audios). This paper analyses online educational resources based on the above mentioned classification. Introduction “Over 20% of the 17.0+ million higher education students enrolled are taking at least one course online. And this figure is on the rise. Traditional schools, employers, and students of all ages are recognizing online education as a legitimate and an endlessly useful tool towards starting, continuing, or finishing a degree. Online education simply reduces that gap between those who are able to attend traditional universities and those who are not” (Online Education — the Advantages of Online Degrees) Online education attracts everybody because of the convenience it provides to all irrespective of person’s age, gender, intellectual level or location. The main advantage of online education is its wide reach-ability. It is possible for online learners to attend the classes anywhere and anytime they want. A person staying in his residence in India can attain an online degree from America easily because of the advancements in online educations at present. It is not required for him to go to America, at least once as part of his educational requirement. Online study materials or educational resources can be of different types. Based on the nature of presentation, the online study materials or resources can be classified into three; Print; Video and Audio. Online educational resources – Print The first kind of online educational resources are the print media. Print materials can be classified into two types; e-text and e-zines. Any text based information which is digitally encoded and readable using electronic means can be referred as e-texts. It is similar in all aspects of a traditional paper printed text except the fact that it is in electronic form. It is easy to edit these texts using electronic means. Moreover these texts can be downloaded to any other computers, CD ROMS or any other electronic data storage devices. An online learner can download these texts and he can add more topics to it and also can remove the unwanted from it based on his online learning requirements. Thus he can accommodate all the important points or topics of his course in a single electronic book rather than going after different reference books as in the case of conventional direct classroom learning methods. E-zines are electronic magazines, delivered via a Web site or an email newsletter (Ezine) The name e-zine is generally applied to small magazines and newsletters distributed by any electronic method like e-mails. In other words e-zines are electronic versions of the traditional magazines. The advantage of e-zines is that most of them have contents from different magazines and hence the reader gets enough depth in knowledge about a particular topic. For example, an online learner may need different aspects of a particular topic and e-zines can provide because it incorporates ideas from different magazines. Online educational resources – Video The second kind of online educational resources are videos. Video communication can be accomplished through videoconferencing and streaming videos. “Perhaps the biggest advantage or benefit video conferencing has to offer is the ability to meet with people in remote locations without incurring travel expenses or other expenses associated with face to face communication” (Owen) Video communication is one of the main medium of online education. It can be used in two ways; video conferencing and streaming video. Video conferencing can provide the facilities of a real classroom using online virtual classroom method. The teacher can interact with the students through videoconferencing just like a real classroom environment. The only thing required for such communication is the high speed internet connections both to the teacher and the online students. It is not possible for a teacher to demonstrate all things using online explanatory notes using the print media alone. Students need the direct contact with the teachers to clear some of their doubts which can be accomplished using the videoconferencing methods. Video conferencing can stimulate better brainstorming, knowledge sharing and information gathering (Owen) It is possible that a teacher can teach variety of students from different parts of the world using videoconferencing. Knowledge sharing can effectively take place using the videoconferencing. The second kind of video communication is using streaming videos. “Streaming video is content sent in compressed form over the Internet and displayed by the viewer in real time. With streaming video or streaming media, a Web user does not have to wait to download a file to play it. Instead, the media is sent in a continuous stream of data and is played as it arrives” (Streaming video) The student who uses streaming videos, should have a video player which is capable of uncompressing the video signals received. The main advantage of streaming videos is that the student can use it again and again whenever he needs a reference from it. Online educational resources – Audio The third kind of online educational resources are audio medias. Streaming audios are the main audio type of online educational resources. “Streaming audio is a method of delivering an audio signal to your computer over the Internet, and differs from the "normal" method of receiving Internet audio in one important way: instead of having to download a ".wav", ".au" or other type of file completely before being able to listen to it, you hear the sound as it arrives at your computer, and therefore do not have to wait for a complete download” (What is a streaming audio?) Like the streaming video the streaming audio also needs an audio player in the user’s computer system. Streaming audios are the main audio resources of the online education system. Streaming audios provide the experience of a direct classroom lecturing and it can be used again and again whenever the student needs to refer it. Unlike the real classroom teaching streaming audios and videos can be utilized on numerous occasions. Conclusions Online educational resources can be classified into three major categories; print resources, video resources and audio resources. Most of the online educational resources utilize electronic or digital data. E-texts and e-zines are the major print resources of online educational resources while videoconferencing and video streaming are the main means of video resources. Streaming audios are used as the online audio resources. Online educational resources like streaming videos and streaming audios can be used again and again on numerous occasions whereas it is not possible in a normal classroom to refer the lecture delivered by the teacher again and again. References 1. Ezine, Retrieved on 13 September 2009 from http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/ezine/ 2. Online Education — the Advantages of Online Degrees, Retrieved on 13 September 2009 from http://www.edvisors.com/ 3. Owen Frank,2009, Advantages and Uses of Video Conferencing, Retrieved on 13 September 2009 from http://ezinearticles.com/?Advantages-and-Uses-of-Video-Conferencing&id=88739 4. Streaming video, 2009, Retrieved on 13 September 2009 from http://searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid186_gci213055,00.html 5. What is a streaming audio?, Retrieved on 13 September 2009 from http://www.live-radio.net/streams.shtml Read More