E-Learning an Accompaniment to Traditional Learning - Coursework Example

E-Learning an Accompaniment to Traditional Learning Introduction Learning which takes place in an electronically simulated environment is called e- learning. E-Learning, can be internet-based training, web-based training, or computer-based training . (Kurtus)“e-Learning is a catch-all term that covers a wide range of instructional material that can be delivered on a CD-ROM or DVD, over a local area network (LAN), or on the Internet”.It is coming generation instruction methods being created today. With e-Learning, users can indulge themselves in a three-dimensional environment to further develop their learning experience. Moreover, e-Learning can be practiced anywhere and anytime as long as the user possesses the proper hardware. E-learning can be practiced with CD-ROM, Network, Intranet or Internet. It consist of text, audio, video, animation and virtual environments. It can be a much enriched learning experience that surpasses the level of training one might experience in a crowded classroom. It is done at ones own pace and comfort. The value of the electronic-based training, as in every type of training, depends on it content and its delivery. E-learning can suffer from many of the same drawbacks as classroom training like monotonous speech, boring slides, and less opportunity for interaction. The attraction of e-learning, however, is that new software gives chance for the creation of very effective learning environments that can focus you in the material.e-Learning can be done with the help of an internet connection, an intranet, a network or a storage disk. E-Learning, in many ways, can be better than classroom learning methods as it is a one-on-one learning method and is self-paced. According to Learning Consultant(2003)“No single e-learning method is best for every learning need. You will most likely need to use several e-learning technologies as well as traditional learning methods. A blended learning program combines e-learning and traditional learning methods. Blended learning can provide the convenience, speed and cost effectiveness of e-learning with the personal touch of traditional learning”. Levels of e-learning E-learning can be segmented into four categories, from the basic to the very advanced. The categories are: Knowledge databases -- While this is not part of actual training, these databases are the most basic type of e-learning. These are knowledge databases seen on software sites offering indexed explanations and assistance for software questions, along with step-by-step instructions for doing specific tasks. Harrison(2003,p.47-50)states that “These are usually moderately interactive, meaning that you can either type in a key word or phrase to search the database, or make a selection from an alphabetical list”.  Online support -- Online support is also a method of e-learning and functions in the same manner to knowledge databases. Online support comes in the form of chat rooms, forums, online bulletin boards, live instant- messaging support, e-mails etc.It is a bit more interactive than knowledge databases, online support offers the chance for more specific questions and answers, as well as more immediate answers. Asynchronous training – This comprises of self-paced learning, either with the help of CD-ROM, Network ,Intranet-based and Internet It may consist of access to instructors by means of online bulletin boards, e-mail and online discussion groups. Or, it can be completely self-contained with links to reference materials instead of a live instructor.  Synchronous training -- Synchronous training is done in reality with the assistance of a live instructor facilitating the training. Everyone logs in at a given time and communicate directly with the instructor and with each other. You can have your cyber hand and even see the cyber whiteboard. It lasts for a specific amount of time – like a single session, several weeks, months or even years. This type of training usually happens through Internet Web sites, conferencing, audio or video, Internet telephony or by live broadcasts to students in a classroom. Learning process Khan(2004,p.33-40),refers that“A typical e-learning process has planning, design, development, evaluation, delivery, and maintenance stages. The e-learning process is iterative in nature. In e-learning, people are involved in the process of creating e-learning materials and making them available to a specified audience”.Let's start with what goes on in a person's head when they start learning. First, learning requires concentration. Effective training grabs the attention of the listener and holds it. Unfortunately, the neural systems in the brain that take care of attention and store information as memory get tired very easily. They need rest every three to five minutes; otherwise they become much less responsive. They recover very quickly, but training has to adjust with this quick fatigue/boredom pattern for the person to learn effectively. Training that is designed to move from one set to another proves to be the most effective learning model. The patterns those neural sets respond more to involve interweaving different forms of information and using different areas of the brain. The memory process involves: 1. Listening to a fact 2. Relating a concept to that fact. 3. Visualizing the two together These systems are interconnected and work together to become memory (i.e. learning). The goal is to create memory in each neural system. Information created in a way that travels from neural system to neural system creates more impact on learning. E-learning and Retention According to Smith (2004,p.34-37), “The issue of student retention and completion rates in distance education have been investigated and vigorously argued over for at least the last seven decades.”Besides catering to neural systems' requirement training should also incorporate other elements such as interaction, feedback and imagery. E-learning can involve many elements that make learning new material, a new program or a new process more interesting. Making learning more or interesting or fun is what makes it more effective. It is not possible to turn every type of training in to e-training, but many can be with excellent results. The elements for a successful e-learning include:  Variety in the types of content – The Images, text and sounds work together to create memory in the brain and result in better retention of the material.  Creating interaction that grabs the attention – Creating games, quizzes and even use of something on the screen develops more interest, which in turn builds more retention.  Bring immediate feedback -- E-learning courses can bring in immediate feedback to rectify misunderstood material. The faster the feedback the better, because each step of learning builds depends upon the previous step. If no feedback is available then the next step may be building upon an incorrect base.  Encourage interaction with e-learner and e-instructor -- Chat rooms, instant messaging, discussion boards and e-mail all are effective interaction for e-learners and do a excellent job of replacing classroom discussions. Creating an online community significantly influences the success of online programs. To incorporate all these elements into training, companies develop simple tools that allow you to use video or other media, animation, and set special attributes for them like :Hot spots that link to another image or file ,Pop-up questions, Transition effects ,Audio responses to questions , ,JavaScript’s CGI,Flash and shockwave file and Other effects that make objects react to the user's actions Attributes of e-learning (Lewis)“In an ideal training world, a wide range of viable options would be available to learners, and they would have a deep understanding of their relative strengths, weaknesses, and attributes”. Self-paced e-learning allow you to learn the course at your own pace. This helps in avoiding missing of classes in situations where you have to leave the course or you just don't catch what the instructor explained-learning courses provides user-controlled elements that aren't feasible in normal training classes. For example, understanding the sound of an irregular heart beat from that of a normal heart beat by clicking on screen icons allows the learner to listen at their own pace and replay the sound as often as they prefer. This self-paced factor makes e-learning more effective. Interactive E-learning also allows interactivity. This type of interactivity could be in the way of simply clicking on appropriate responses to particular questions, dragging and dropping items to practice a skill or clicking to animate an object or start a process. Interactive training based on game is also very effective at improving learning. Now, one may think of Tomb Raider," or “Doom” but gaming in a training process does not have to be quite that elaborate, but it certainly can be! Think about games where you pass along a series of tasks, learning about the environment, and use tools you figured along the way. Those same techniques can be infused into many forms of learning programs. Obringer(2010) states that“This type of game scenario could be easily created in Trainersoft by using photos or graphics, and applying hot spots that link to video clips. Once the video clip has played, a multiple-choice quiz box could pop up that asks the user what he should do next”.Games can give you an adventurous experience in almost any type of scenario. Having a chance to explore, try, succeed or fail make effective training. Motivating Being motivated to learn is a very important fact. Knowing the course you're taking up going to have some fun factors like video, animation, audio and the "gaming" scenarios we mentioned above develop more interest and curiosity in learner. This also aid in better retention and quicker learning. Other motivating factors with e-learning are the conveniences that it gives, such as being able learn the course any time and anywhere. It's much easier to incorporate training into a busy schedule when you don't have time to take two days off to travel and then sit in a classroom Other e-learning elements that assist classroom scene Apart from the greater issues like interaction, motivation, control of the pace e-learning can instantly allow the use information that researchers have been studying for the past 20 or more. These studies have recognized things that can greatly impact memory and recall. Research found significant improvements in recall when:  using different colors and certain color combinations  combining words with images. .  using different types of media  using layouts that moves with the natural movement of the eye Benefits of E-learning E-learning has many benefits than traditional classroom training. Liu(2009,p.6),“The learners could obtain maximum e-learning benefit in the shortest time upon rich online resources and media”.While the most seen are the flexibility and the cost savings from not traveling to spend excess time away from work, there are also others that might not be so obvious. For example:  it is less expensive to make - Using some companies authoring software to create your own asynchronous training programs, e-training is very much free once you reach the break-even point. Synchronous programs will have continued costs associated with the instructor taking the class, but will still be much lower than traditional courses.  It can be practiced at ones own pace -Most e-learning programs can be used when needed. The programs create a module-based design allowing the learner to go through smaller sections of training that can be used and absorbed for a while before proceeding further.  It moves faster – e-learning is faster than traditional courses because the individualized approach allows learners to skip material they already know and understand and proceed to issues they need training on.  It provides a consistent message -- E-learning eliminates the problems associated with different instructors teaching slightly different material on the same subject. For company-based training, this is often critical.  it can work from any location and any time - -E-learners can go through training sessions from anywhere, usually at anytime. This Just-In-Time (JIT) benefit can make learning possible for people who never would have been able to work it into their schedules prior to the development of e-learning. (If you manage a corporate learning program, however, be careful about requesting that workers learn on their own time from home.)According to Liberty(2009), writes that “The Internet can offer the logical solution for a company's education and training objectives. Approximately 80% of the professional workforce already uses computers on the job”.  It can be updated easily and quickly -- Online e-learning sessions are especially easy to keep up-to-date because the updated materials are simply uploaded to a server. CD-ROM-based programs may be slightly more expensive to update and distribute, but still come out cheaper than reprinting manuals and retraining instructors.  It can lead to increased retention and a stronger grasp on the subject -- This is because of the many elements that are combined in e-learning to reinforce the ERD An ERD is a model that projects the concepts or entities that present in a system and the relationships between those entities. Sauter(200) claims that “Developing an ERD requires an understanding of the system and its components. Data models are tools used in analysis to describe the data requirements and assumptions in the system from a top-down perspective”.An ERD is often serves as a means to visualize a relational database: each entity show as a database table and the relationship lines shows the keys in one table that point to specific records in related tables. ERD can also be more precise, not necessarily representing every table required within a database, but serving to represent the major concepts and relationships. This ERD present an abstract, theoretical view of the major entities and relationships required for management of electronic resources. It may help the database design process for an e-resource management system, but does not represent every table that would be necessary for an electronic resource management database Construction of ERD There are various different modeling systems for entity relationship diagramming. This ERD is shown in the “Information Engineering” style. Entities: Entities are concepts contained in the data model. Each entity is presented with the help of a box within the ERD. Entities are abstract ideas, each representing several instances of the concept in question. An entity might be taken as a container that holds all of the instances of a particular thing in a system. Entities are equal to database tables in a relational database, with each row of the table representing an instance of that entity. Each entity represents a container for instances of the thing in question.Wieringa(2003,p.43).writes in his book that “ ERD represents two things:which types of entities can exist in subject doman and how many of them can exist”. The diagram below has an entity for “employee” and another for “company.” This shows that the system being modeled may contain one or more employee and one or more companies. Still, no relationship between employee and companies has been specified. Relationships: The relationships between entities are represented by lines. Relationship lines show that each instance of an entity can have a relationship with instances of the connected entity, and vice versa. So far, no relationship between students and schools has been specified. A relationship line can be labeled to define the relationship. It shows the employee joins the company. Optionality and Cardinality Symbols at the ends of the relationship lines specify the optionality and the cardinality of each relationship. “Optionality” explains whether the relationship is optional or mandatory. “Cardinality” represents the maximum number of relationships. As a relationship line flows from one entity to another, near the related entity two symbols will show up The first is the optionality indicator.A stroke ( | ) specifies that relationship is mandatory. Example of a diagram. Difficulties faced by student about ERD The students can face various problems while learning ERD and few are listed below: According to Naugler(2007,p.67-70)“While the tools in ERD are essential, the students may develop tendencies to misapply them.It is not uncommon students use Excel for solving a database problem until they are unable to meet some requirements”.In using Access the first step is creating tables, with “common sense” replacing design. However, they do study the facilities within Access and learn to create the relationship diagrams for the tables they are using in the application they have created. Eventually, after solving some simple Access exercises, the students develop a false sense that database is Access and the use of reverse engineering is the normal system design approach. This invoke difficulties in learning the concepts in the design .To minimize the chances of such erroneous conceptions, the students should be given in the beginning the appropriate design as input and be suggested to develop the application. The main objectives of learning is to relate with learning the analysis and design concepts and applying them in creating analysis and design models .The learners are tempted to use various graphics tools for ERD and this can be overwhelming especially compared to the concept being learned. Most students like to use graphical tools to produce great looking output. This puts the emphasis on matters of secondary importance and makes the students to focus on a relatively minor issue. If the instructor does not make the diagram on board and explain each step in detail, many students seriously misestimate the effort required and become frustrated when making diagram become more difficult than they assumed the work to be. The use of tools should be avoided at the beginning stages of requirements analysis. Other wise they could be very uncomfortable in creating and examining the design. They should use paper prototypes, which is very effective during the early design stage. Beginners make many mistakes in database design, specifically saying, in normalization and identifying necessary relationships accurately. Hence, it is quite obvious that students find normalization difficult. Even though they find normalization difficult and recognize that design was important, they still needed more tools than concepts. It appears that students take learning tools more important than concepts. One reason for this could be the importance that is placed on learning packages such as Access at early stage. Besides, by only creating tables for some simple systems the students believe they are capable of developing database applications. Students develop good process and data models at the initial stage. They produce data models using reverse engineering and in this process, they some times fail to appreciate the significance of the relationships and normalization. A common problem seen in most of the projects which use Access as the database management system is when there is discontinuity between the object model (class design) and relational data model. Instead of transforming the object model into the data model, the students tend to carry out a separate ERD model from scratch. Access is designed as a productivity tool for end users and not a database development tool for building applications. As a result, it does not help the treatment of object-relational transformations. So the techniques for transforming the object model into a data model should to be taught e in the analysis and design, in the software engineering, or in the database course. The course helps students in developing enough confidence to conduct analysis and design diagrams and create concepts. However, at times they did not exploit like features such as reverse engineering and the tool it offers. There should be sufficient learning elements provided so that the product is only one element of the whole course. This may require well planning to ensure the product is used primarily as a tool for meeting the course objectives. Language programming to develop ERD Authorware Authorware is a multimedia learning development package applicable to large structured pieces. It works on an icon based structuring interface suited for non-programmers.Smith (200)writes “Authorware is a multimedia software design language from the makers of Director”. It uses a flow –of-control model just like a flow chart. It does not follow a movie structure. It allows structuring of material s and provides rich interactivity with buttons, rollovers, hotspots etc. Authorware allows the development of most multimedia applications. It is not very good at complex custom animation but very good for structured applications with embedded quizzes and tests .Authorware helps in providing learners with hierarchical multiple workspace windows but does not have scroll bars. It also provides object inspectors, tools, libraries, and control interfaces. Authorewar has a comprehensive tutorial and has very good help files. The basic construction of a piece is done in this by drag-and – drop icons. Icons represent movies, images, containers and decisions. It will be easy if the learner is familiar with flowcharts. It supports graphic formats including GIF, BMP, and JPG. Sound formats which it supports include WAV,PCM,SWA,VOX and AIF. It can also run flash movies and director movies. Wilson (2002,p.42),writes that “Authorware can be opened in windows environment, much like any other windows program and has variety of media elements”.Authorware has gained importance in a short span of time and is a leading authoring tool in multimedia industry. Its rapid growth was the result of its unique combination of easy to use and ever increasing functionality. In this one create a presentation sequence by dragging icons from an icon palette to a flow line and arranging them in an order one want. It is also possible to import graphics and text from other programs. In addition to being very visual and easy to use icons /flow line method, it included hundreds of built –in functions and variable .These provides increase functionality and good working ground. It allows you to create your own variable to achieve wide range of objectives. Its strength lies in its capability to create, deliver, training and learning applications etc.Authorware allows easy creation of interactions that require the learner to become engaged in the learning process without the use of programming. Visual Basics.Net Visual Basic is a visual programming for creating windows and web based applications. Mabbutt(2010) refers that “Visual Basic was invented by Microsoft, but it's based on an early language called BASIC invented by Dartmouth College professors John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz in 1964”.Visual Basic helps to develop complicated applications very quickly. The programmer creates windows graphically by dragging program elements from the Visual Basic Toolbox and writes basic code for each element. Visual Basic is event driven, which means that procedures are done automatically when the end user selects menu items, clicks the mouse, moves objects on the screen, etc. Programmers have gone through a major change in many years of programming different machines. For example, things that take days for creating an application in other programming languages could be done in hours with Visual Basic. Visual Basic provides many sets of tools to help learners in building exciting applications. Visual Basic provides these tools to make life far easier for people because all the real hard code is already written for users. Visual Basic can be called a programming language and also a real graphical development environment. This environment helps programmers with little programming experience to easily develop good Windows applications. Visual Basic also can be used to develop programs that can be used as a front-end application to a database system, and also be a user interface which takes user input and displays formatted output in a more attractive and useful form. Visual Basic is very much known for the ease with which it allows the programmer to develop nice looking graphical programs with little coding unlike many other languages that take number of lines of programmer keyed code. As the programmer works in the graphical environment most of the program code is automatically generated by the Visual Basic program. Visual Basic's tools helps in quickly translating an abstract idea into a program design that we can actually view on the screen. It encourages you to experiment, correct, revise and network your design until the new project meets your need. Apart from this, it inspires your imagination and creativity. Visual Basic is very suitable for developing applications that run on the Windows operating system. Visual Basic is used to create applications in a number of different fields like business, commerce, accounting, consulting and education. According to Jones(2003,p.11),“Visual Basics provide support in the language to find bugs early in the development process”. Many of the things that we do with Visual Basic really aren’t very basic. The Visual Basic language is powerful, if you can imagine a programming task; it can be accomplished using Visual Basic. Flash Flash is a very interesting technology which adds interactivity and flashy graphics to a website. Flash gives animation and dynamic interaction to the Web site. Flash and Shockwave are the perfect one to develop dynamic Web sites. Green(2010,p9),writes that “The interface is the feature rich authoring environment that is the heart and soul of Flash”. Flash was owned by Macromedia before and is now owned by Adobe. Flash websites are very popular among designers who want to flaunt off their flash skills or just make animation and dynamic websites without possessing server-side programming skills. But there are good ways to use flash on the site and bad ways. Flash can be difficult at times and time-consuming, so developers who use flash users can sometimes get irritated. .Flash is growing in popularity both with web designers and with the public. There are certain things on the web that can only be done efficiently with flash, and some site owners consider flash as a very important part of their Web design. Learning to write flash web pages can be difficult, but there are many resources available both online and offline to help users. But using flash can be risky too, as some customers are easily put off by a flash website Flash is a powerful tool, but like all tool in the Web developer's toolbox, it must not be used to solve every situation. Some problems can be best solved with flash, and others cannot. If the user knows to use Flash effectively, they can increase the page views and customers. Flash is well-supported on almost all of the Web browsers, and if one build a site or application in flash, they can be sure that it will be viewed properly by anyone who has the Flash plug in. It is an operating system and independent of browser. Flash was previously used as an animation tool, and that is what it was best suited for. It is easy to create animations with the flash, and then easy to view them. Kyrnin(2009) claims that “ Flash is a wonderful tool for adding games, animation, and video to your Web site, and if those types of features are important, then one should use Flash”.Video works well in Flash applications as it does not need an OS-dependent plug in like QuickTime or Media Player. Games with flash can be fun, and games do not have the browser support issues. Vector graphics can look appealing and smoother and flash allows developers to develop applications with smooth lines provided that the customer has a vector-graphic tool installed on their hard drive. Conclusion Because of the lack of time, and also due to its many qualities e-learning has become both a necessary and effective teaching tool. With the availability of a PC and an Internet connection, costs are lowered and the learning process has become easier Today E-learning is gaining more and more importance in the educational market.The E-learning industry focus on higher education institutions, and this implies that students are the main customers. Pelineagra(2010)writes that“Every year the number of students who enroll in online courses is growing significantly, and according to figures the growth is between 12% and 14% per year”. .There are some challenges brought about by E-learning is that it requires apart from user-friendly programs, also well trained staff capable of using and creating quality content. If online education is growing at a fast pace, the teachers/instructors need to keep updated with the new technologies in the market in order to offer assistance whenever it is needed.. So its always better to combine traditional classes with online courses, for greater benefit. This will make the learning more lively and interactive and students can have better connection with instructor and other students. Bibliography Green, T, 2010. Foundation Flash for Designers . 2nd ed. California: Apress Co Harrison, R, 2003. E-learning methods. Levels of e-learning, 10/3, 47-50 Khan, B.H, 2004. E-learnin process. Educational Technology, 44/5, 33-40 Liberty ,J. 2009. The Advantages of eLearning. [ONLINE] Available at: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Advantages-of-eLearning&id=603386. [Accessed 17 November 10 Kurtus,R. 2004. What is r-learning?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.school-for-champions.com/elearning/whatis.htm. [Accessed 16 November 10 Kyrnin,J. 2009. Flash Websites - Pros and Cons. [ONLINE] Available at: http://webdesign.about.com/od/flash/i/flash_pros_cons.htm. [Accessed 17 November 10 Lewis,N.J. 2010. The Five Attributes of I Innovative E-Learning. [ONLINE] Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4467/is_6_54/ai_63795966/. [Accessed 17 November 10 Liu, J, 2009. Active Media Technology. 1st ed. Heidelberg: Springer-Verleg Learning Cosulting. 2003. what is e-learning?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.e-learningconsulting.com/consulting/what/e-learning.html. [Accessed 17 November 10]. Jones,K.L. 2003. Learning Visual Basic .NET . 1st ed. California: O'Reilly and Associates Inc Mabbutt,D. 2010. Visual Basics. [ONLINE] Available at: http://visualbasic.about.com/od/learnvbnet/a/LVBE_L1.htm. [Accessed 17 November 10 Naugler, D., 2007. Support in Learning Concepts. Use of Tools in Undergraduate, 12/3, 67-70 Pelineagra,O. 2010. E-learning: a rival for traditional learning - or a powerful ally?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.sbp-romania.com/Blog/2010/08/10/2010-08-10-elearning-a-rival-for-traditional-learning-or-a-powerful-ally.aspx. [Accessed 16 November 10]. Obringer,L.A. 2010. How E-learning Works . [ONLINE] Available at: http://communication.howstuffworks.com/elearning3.htm. [Accessed 17 November 10 Smith, K.T, 2004. Journal of online learning. Early attrition among e-learners, 9/2 34-37 Smith,D.. 2000. Authoreware. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.webring.org/hub?ring=authoring;sid=20;sid=20. [Accessed 17 November 10 Sauter,V.L,. 2000. Entry Relationship Diagram. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/er/er_intro.html. [Accessed 18 November 10 Wilson, S.J, 2002. Authorware : inside macromedia . 1st ed. Albany: Delmar . Wieringa, R., 2003. Design methods for reactive systems. 1st ed. San francisco: Elsevier Science Read More