It’s no surprise that online learning is gaining ground at breakneck speed. It has already reached a global market share of $46.9 billions. That’s half of Apple’s seemingly bottomless cash pile, and is something everybody should consider.
Today, thinking about traditional education, especially private technical schools, entering into a traditional brick and mortar business is utter nonsense. Opening a vinyl shop when the iPod became popular would have been a smarter choice.
Online learning is not the next step: it’s the present
According to a recent research from Eduventures, 11% of US university students are attending online courses. This figure is projected to reach 20% by 2014. Now, it doesn’t take any precognitive skill to foresee how the avalanche effect will raid traditional education between 2014 and 2019.
Online learning technologies are advancing as well, and even countries such as Turkey are actively planning to provide students with iPads. Fifteen millions of iPads, that’s an impressive amount by any standard, and even if it is going to be subsidized by educational grants, should this plan succeed it would be one the most aggressive policies in digital education.
The amount of energy, pollution, stress and even real estate space that online learning can save is amazing. Despite this, most schools and colleges do not offer any kind of online learning program.
There’s plenty of online tutorials but real online learning is probably the largest untapped market around, and one where innovators and early adopters can make the difference and still find a very profitable portfolio of opportunities. From technological solutions -such as the iPads mentioned above- to more pedagogic issues, such as bringing back the inter-personal rapport into online learning.
For this to happen, someone has to think outside the box. The box being, of course, the technological device used to deliver the contents.
Right now, most eLearning is still text based. There’s a significant amount of multimedia based trainings, but most of them are nothing more than a rough remake of presentation software.
Online video training is a different matter. It’s gaining ground both in the form of screen casts, as well as real televised lessons that employ the latest online meeting technologies. Web video education is a key component, and this approach has the advantage of not requiring a video production studio, nor an huge staff handling the technical aspects. Anybody can telecast, and it’s only a matter of time before mobile devices will be granted enough bandwidth to fully cover the demands of a real, multi user, classroom session.
Evaluating the online learning solutions
Among the many studies available, there’s a general -even if not specific- consensus that online learners can achieve better results than their classroom-stuck counterparts.
Is this really due to online learning? In my opinion, it’s also a matter of motivation and will power. People choosing to learn online are usually much more motivated, on average, than those selecting a traditional course or university.
Online learning is still an alien for most of us, an unexpected experience, something we don’t possess the skills to manage entirely. It’s reassuring to know that we seat along like minded individuals, and can ask for help to an human being just like we always did.
Online learners feel different and this difference requires strong willpower to be managed properly. I think this leads to an easier path towards success and may be part of the already mentioned stronger success that online learners enjoy.
Online learning does not stop at traditional curricula
Music, figurative arts, visual effects and sculpture may seem to be activities where a constant relationship between the student and the teacher is required. While most people would agree that math or grammar, such as language learning as in ESL lessons can be studied online without too much effort, the above mentioned arts are all being successfully taught in online training courses. Yet, this is the age of youtube makeup lessons – another form of online learning, even if disguised as an hobby.
The world renowned Berklee music school, for example, has dozens of in depth online training programs. AnimationMentor, is a successful online school that trains animation, both traditional and computer graphics based. There are fine arts colleges doing exceptionally well received online courses. In this case, the media is not the message, or at the very least, the media does not have an impact upon the message.
These are very exciting times for online learners and teachers. There are still a lot of open opportunities, and yet the time is quickly running up. In no way an online learning system can afford to be built around outdated technology, and it’s in the most human friendly devices, the smartphones and the tablets that the key has to be found. User interfaces have to follow a virtual product design paradigm, and operate in a clean, straightforward way.
eLearning has to be brought closer to the users, and made an everyday experience. Bandwidth has to be increased for mobile connections, and limits have to be lifted exactly as it happened for physical lines ten years ago.
A new generation of teachers has to engage into a different way of teaching: reaching their students even when they are out of reach. This is the challenge that awaits everybody involved into online education, be it professional or curricular.
