Elearning the Impact of E-Learning

Elearning

The Impact of E-Learning on Education at All Levels

The traditional geographical, linguistic, cultural and spatial parameters shaping education are being altered today by patterns of technological innovation. The face of education has changed at every level due to the availability of new computing and telecommunication opportunities that are quite literally removing the boundaries of the classroom. Those conditions previously thought of as necessities through which educational instruction is to be carried out are today proving to be restraints of the past as the internet and computer mediated avenues to information, knowledge and instruction are providing a wealth of new ways to reach students. This refers to a process known as electronic learning or e-learning. For the purposes of this examination, e-learning will refer more generally to the variance of forms which computer and internet mediated education can take across different learning contexts. This means that at the pre-school and grade school levels, as well as at the higher education and professional training levels, there are both on-site and remote uses for computer, information and telecommunication technologies that can significantly enhance the flexibility and reach of an instructor or course. Therefore, the following is a general discussion on the impact which e-learning in its various forms has had on education as a whole, with changes and innovations in information technology significantly shaping the current landscape and future horizon for education.

First, it is useful to consider a concise background leading to our current point of inflection. Indeed, even outside of the educational context, computers and computer-based technologies have become a part of our everyday lives. For many Americans and for people around the world, the computer has come to be seen as a gateway to the execution of all manner of personal, professional, consumerist and social activities, whether at home, at work or even while in transit. The fact of the computer's thorough integration into our lives is reflected with increasing seamlessness across generations, with our younger generations coming of age at a time when such technology is readily available, accessible and popularly appealing. As a point of fact, those who are entering elementary school today are considerably more likely to be well-acquainted already with the recreational and constructive aspects of the computer than were those who were entering into elementary school just a decade ago. One of the reasons for this relative shift is that, with the fairly swift evolution in the technology's applicable versatility, there has also occurred an equally swift evolution in its applicability to the needs, interests and faculties of today's young learners. This evolution, which may occur to our sensibilities as a natural and inevitable process, is in fact almost ironic given the sophistication and complexity of the personal computer and its history. Its common adoption into public education and primary education, as well as into the public sector and into the mainstream of society as a whole, would at first be slow. Indeed, this level of adoption would be almost nonexistent for the first decades of the computer's existence. However, once the popular adoption of the computer for public and private purposes alike had begun in earnest by the late 20th century, its proliferation for the purposes of education -- and increasingly primary education -- would be rapid and marked by constant innovation.

By the late 1990s, such technologies as had prior been relegated to only the facilities of graduate school educational contexts, such as internet web access, interactive multi-user communicational interfaces, text-based chat frameworks and a host of graphic-based video programs, had received empirical support from educational scholars as suitable and even primarily recommended tools for teaching elementary aged children in a wide array of disciplinary contexts. Indeed, research from this time demonstrates a growing quorum of support for the introduction of computer terminals with such web and graphic applications to young learners gaining skills in basic educational disciplines such as literacy development and mathematic technique refinement. To this extent, "Computers . . . can be particularly useful tools for enhancing children's social, language, and cognitive skills. This paper (Seng, 1998) highlights the computer's effect on children's problem solving, reflective thinking, and cognitive development." (Cesarone, 1) This is to argue that it has become a distinctly more important priority in recent years, where resources are available, to ensure that young children are given access to the type of computing technology at home and at school which can help to stimulate media literacy and positive development in all the capacities above noted.

The consideration of e-learning encompasses a relatively unlimited spectrum of possibilities, including those applications for computer-based learned that are grounded in classroom or homework activities as will often occur amongst younger learners or for distance learning by way of internet channels as more frequently is now applied for university level students. To the former categories, one of the great prospects in using information technology as a way to embrace younger learners is the increasing likelihood here noted that said learners are already somewhat versed in and comfortable with these media. The permeation of computer technologies into everyday life, especially through the individual and personal uses of internet access (whether for the gathering of information, communication with acquaintances, for shopping or for participation in gaming and recreational opportunities) denotes that individuals are increasingly preparing themselves for education through this mode. The means that young learners will frequently begin school, even the preschool level, with at least a rudimentary ability to manipulate computer mediated activities as a way of discovering individual strengths and needs.

This idea of individual learning needs may direct much of our consideration for the subject, suggesting that one of the key impacts of computing to education of preschool and elementary school aged students is its ability to administer a heretofore impossibly wide variant of diagnostic modes for understanding aptitude and performance. Therefore, the computer offers a relatively novel chance to engage each student one-on-one in a mode of instruction or diagnosis, helping to mitigate an otherwise omnipresent issue of needed cultural sensitivity in our schools. Accordingly, our findings will contend consistently that "computers and other technology offer opportunities to aid learning by highlighting individual and gender differences in learning approaches." (Cesarone, 1)

Indeed, one of the core conditions to which computing technology has emerged as a response is that of diversity. Though certainly this would not be a condition to produce assumptions as to the value of computing in education, it would enter into the early discourse on how best to apply emerging technology to existing challenges. Therefore, we must consider that this is a condition reflected in our schools, where more languages, nationalities, ethnicities and cultures are represented than ever before, but where the principles of academic standardization and cultural homogeneity have rarely been more firmly instituted. Within this paradox, one prospective solution has become apparent through the parallel diversification of the informational media used to implement individual learning strategies. The computer's capacity for appealing to diversity extends beyond simple lines of culture, ethnicity or gender, and approaches learning strategies differences by virtues of the wide array of media applications which it will have at its disposal today. With the computer have reached a place of relatively high video/music/web/data integration level and having done so while approaching increasingly more accessible market prices, its capacity to provide young learners with the multimedia experience necessary to help draw out individual learning context preference is fairly unprecedented from the perspective of previously available learning instruments. As such, with today's available elementary age education softwares, "areas of learning covered include alphabet and letters, animals, colors, community helpers, counting and numbers, creativity, letter-word association, memory and concentration, music, problem solving, science and nature, and storytelling." (Cesarone, 1) The sheer array of learning approaches illustrates the unique ability of the computer to approach the student with the sensitivity of unbiased applicability.

And for the instructor, the opportunities which are presently available to him or her as a product of these technologies are diverse in nature and providing of a greater arsenal of instruments for gaining students' attention and gauging individual learning needs. This is to say that "the computer has become a virtual teaching forum of great flexibility, with ever-improving technologies allowing for avenues of student use which "include drill and practice, tutorials, study guides, games and simulations, inquiry and problem solving, graphics, and word processing and writing." (Berson, 486) This multitude of applications reflects an opportunity for a progressive teaching mode, in which these varying computing tools offer the chance to distill individual learning strengths and needs. As is indicated by above explored theoretical considerations, the integration of new technologies in a teaching strategy will help both the student and the teacher to identify individual learning styles and to direct them constructively.

The future for computing in education should, at least in this context of elementary education, reflect an interest in furthering the interlinking of in-class and homework activities through the constant of computer technology. This is to say that encouraging students to utilize a tool so often employed for recreation as a means to learning will help to bring learning closer to socialization and lifestyle propensities, reinforcing the basic and consistent finding in our study that young-aged computer-use in educational contexts promotes greater socialization in addition to greater cognitive awareness.

Carrington's (2001) study focuses on a diversity of learning strategy potentials that is constructed not by way of race or ethnicity, but by individualized media preferences and sensory strategies for learning. Carrington presents the conclusion that such methods of literacy development which occur in one's formative stages before school will reveal learning dispositions. For example, her examination recognizes that early exposure to the internet bears a positive correlation to one's media literacy, cognitive proficiency and capacity to identify and locate content suited to their individual learning strategies and needs. The underpinning of this study, as it pertains to our larger purpose, is that one means through which to help include all cultural backgrounds in literacy instruction appears to be to diversify the media used in class and to largely incorporate computing advancements at every level. In addition to the benefits discussed here throughout, we can see that the present challenges in education such as those related to addressing a diverse range of ethnic and cultural needs can be met through the integration of already existent computing technologies. Access to a wide array of information in almost limitless contexts (linguistically, nationally or otherwise) renders the internet the most singularly empowering aspect of an increasingly integrated computing aspect of general education. For those at the impressionable age upon which this consideration is drawn, it should seem that the availability of an educational chaperone, as it were, through the virtual world would provide considerable insight and protection in simultaneity.

In order for educators to achieve this necessary level of integration, however, the introduction of and instruction with new computing technologies must be paired with an active reflection of such in the instructional and reading content as well. This is because "research on teaching for developing students emphasizes the importance of social constructivism and context for literacy strategies" (Conley, 49). This contributes to a major demand of future educators pertinent to the cultural demands and technological opportunities discussed here throughout.

We find that at an early stage, reading must be assimilated into the everyday life of a student if it is to become and naturally and appropriately integrated tool. The promotion of this habituation will manifest in a balance in the selection of in-class learning materials where classic examples of early-literacy literature will be complimented by student-directed selections of literature. With older elementary school students, this approach can be expanded to include the selection of and reporting on compositions produced for a diversity of media and the opportunity for independent literature selection. This latter initiative can be instrumental in allowing opportunities for young learners to approach reading within topical and cultural contexts that make them comfortable and promote interest. Essentially, this is to recommend that curricular administrators attempt to resolve ways in which early educational curriculum -- in subjects such as literacy as well as mathematics, social studies, etc. -- can incorporate the opportunities provided by e-learning technology to the optimal benefit of developing minds.

That said, the research conducted here would most prominently point us in the direction of the way that technologies are now being used in higher-education contexts. It is here especially that the truly expansive potential of e-learning has become apparent and has already levied its most significantly transformational effect on the state of education in general. The practice of 'distance education' has come ever more to be integrated with traditional modes of learning as a way of expanding the classroom both in terms of the time and space which it can occupy. Here, classes may be conducted either partially or exclusively over the internet. Using virtual bulletin boards, chat forums, file servers and lecture simulcasts, it is now possible for instructors to conduct entire courses without ever coming into physical proximity of the students. The result is a decidedly cost effective and time-flexible way of engaging students that in some regards enhances their dedication through its convenience. Indeed, according to the text by Bates & Bates (2005), "distance education is one of the few areas of education where for over 30 years technology has been central to the teaching task. A feature of distance education institutions is that they are deliberately designed and structured to exploit the cost and educational benefits of technology." (Bates & Bates, 4)

This is quite naturally a condition which invokes something of a mixed evaluation of the impact of e-learning on education. Of course, distance education has been more commonly adopted because of the enhanced reach and improved flexibility which it promotes in instruction. But a concern over its economic prerogatives emerges with consideration of those institutions which are strictly distance learning educational groups. The most prominent example of this is Phoenix University, a strictly internet-based educational institution which allows individuals to take classes and courses of study to achieve accredited degrees. The nature of such for-profit education groups, facilitated by distance learning realities, tends to draw scrutiny from many traditional educational institutions for its methods and the caliber of its instructors. In spite of this, the affordable nature of Phoenix University courses and the appeal of distance learning to working individuals and students of limited financial means has made Phoenix markedly successful.

In a recent article by Snyder (2009), "while few will argue Apollo (the Phoenix parent company) boasts the best programs on the market, it is impossible not to admit the company has the sector cornered. With the biggest name in online education, the University of Phoenix will be an industry power player as long as online education remains popular and, most importantly, accredited." (Snyder, 1) Perhaps the most important implication of this trend is the massive increase in enrollment experienced by the University of Phoenix and others like it over the last decade as students, if not the academic community as a whole, has come to embrace its possibilities. By 2009, Phoenix had turned a 21.8% increase in enrollment over the previous year. That rate of growth is indicative of the impact that e-learning has had on the public's interest in how best to received instruction, education and degree credits.

As a result of the implications of such patterns as that at Phoenix, as well as in response to a growing consensus that distance learning is a valid and beneficial way to engage student populations, the method has emerged as both acceptable and increasingly proliferated in many respected and renowned colleges and universities. Indeed, it would not be inaccurate to contend that distance learning methods have achieved a mainstream level of acceptance, especially when conducted by institutions with already established reputations. According to the Snyder article, "as just about every traditional college and university in the nation concedes to the online-education push, more and more students will turn to schools that look better on their resumes. Eventually, the University of Phoenix's powerful brand could erode, taking some of its 420,700 enrolled students with it." (Snyder, 1)

As this occurs, so too will an evolution of e-learning methods whereby the economic benefits are self-apparent and more abstract benefits begin to surface. Thus, beyond simply functioning as a model for the financial success of private, for-profit organizations like Phoenix, distance learning is coming to be seen as a necessary offering in the well-heeled university. To traditional universities, its intrigue is not just in the practical implications which it has on instructional methods and reach. Beyond these, e-learning boasts in such incarnations as distance learning a set of faculties and access points for the student that were previously unavailable in the static environment of the classroom. In Anderson's (2003) description, "the essential feature of e-learning extends beyond its access to information and builds on its communicative and interactive features. The goal of quality e-learning is to blend diversity and cohesiveness into a dynamic and intellectually challenging 'learning ecology.' This interactivity goes far beyond the one-way transmission of content and extends our thinking regarding communications among human beings engaged in the educational process." (Anderson, 3)

To Anderson, the web's inherent tendency to promote independent expression, free exchange and discourse unrestricted by the conventional structures, cultural biases and social decorum of the classroom denotes a new way for students and instructors to engage one another. In higher education, the prospects hereby made possible for depth of discussion, free exchange and personal revelation are -- if not necessarily better than those made possible in the classroom -- at least different. This is to indicate the e-learning can, in the form of distance education, function as an alternate mode of learning that will often compliment classroom experiences. Especially for students who, according to Anderson's report, are often not receiving the type of stimulation or tool-sharpening anticipated through higher education, e-learning can be a bastion for ideas where traditional classrooms can be mere vessels for data. Anderson views this as a conflict in instructional methods and suggests that distance learning can be a good way to break bad habits for educators as well. Accordingly, Anderson contends that "to realize the potential of e-learning as an open but cohesive system, it is essential that we rethink our pedagogy. Education is about ideas not facts. Moreover, students in higher education are not receiving the educational experiences they need to develop the critical and self-directed higher education skills required for lifelong learning." (Anderson, 3)

This marks one of the core imperatives for this discussion as a whole, which is driven by the understanding that e-learning is something of a response to many existing challenges and shortcomings in modern education. The bevy of learning and instructional solutions which have been adopted and which will be adopted in the future illustrate that innovation has not simply emerged out of the presence of new technologies but that in fact, technology uses are being molded around the perception that American education does have a need for reformation and improvement. This is a pattern that extends beyond the United States as well, impacting most industrialized nations where extensive and accredited university systems exist. Accordingly, "data suggest that in the United States, Canada and some countries in Western Europe, demand for degree programmes, continuing professional education, and workplace training delivered by distance methods has been steadily increasing by an average of around 10 per cent per year since 1996." (Bates & Bates, 13)

For individuals attending traditional universities, there is increasingly an expectation that computer-mediated and distance learning opportunities will be offered and taken seriously. This reveals a positive transition in one regard, making e-learning and distance education increasingly more respected modes for instruction, removing them from the historical affiliation with education privatization and the growth of for-profit modes of teaching. However, it has also demands something of a reconsideration of approach for traditional educational institutions, which have previously dealt with e-learning and distance learning as specialized areas to be departmentalized separately. As the text by Bates & Bates indicates, this contrasts the growing need and expectation for integration of classroom and online interactions. This indicates that as we seek to move on from experimental phases of e-learning adoption to a place of more mainstream practice, universities will need to normalize their approach to these methods. As Bates & Bates contend, "especially in dual-mode institutions, distance education has been seen as a separate activity, on the periphery of mainstream classroom teaching, and somewhat esoteric in its organization needs. Therefore, separate departments or institutions of distances education were established. The growing convergence though between e-learning and the classroom and e-learning at a distance has raised questions about how best to organize and support e-learning." (Bates & Bates, 15)

Today, this means that the impact of e-learning has been somewhat blunted by ineffective implementation. Though this is not a condition which applies everywhere, Anderson's text does bring repeated emphasis to the fact that there is not a sufficiently accepted model yet for how best to move forward with proven technologies and methods of pedagogy while leaving failed or underdeveloped approaches behind. To the point, we are beginning to see in practice many of the concerns which first accompanied the development of this technology. Namely, where distance learning is conducted poorly, with limited creativity and removed from many of the traditional conditions of learning such as classroom attendance and direct face-to-face socialization, there is a risk of individual disengagement.

The classroom context and many of its internal cultural conditions can have the desired effect of enhancing the learning experience and causing individuals to achieve greater levels of interest and engagement. This means that the classroom is not to be overlooked as important to education even as e-learning and the resultant reality of distance learning become even more commonplace. But it also means that distance education methods must be very carefully considered if they are to achieve their intended aims. The idea that these above-noted classroom advantages are lost to distance learning means that certain adjustments to instructional style are to be adopted and even standardized. Key among them, Anderson keys in on the idea of promoting exchange over unidirectional message reception. Anderson argues that "the core element and task. . . is facilitating (initiating, sustaining and summarizing) stimulating and meaningful discourse where students actively participate and take responsibility for making sense of the course content. To 'lecture' online is to negate the power and capability of e-learning and, most detrimentally, to turn students into passive receptors of information." (Anderson, 86)

A core implication of Anderson's conclusions is that one necessary response to the proliferation of distance education techniques is a refinement of the instructional methods used to conduct them. Accordingly, one of the findings of the research conducted here is that educators in distance education contexts must have specialized training and education in those practices and techniques which best suit web mediated virtual classrooms. It is not enough that one is a qualified expert in a specific discipline or field of instruction. Distance learning requires that an instructor also be capable of channeling this knowledge into text-based critical exchange between remotely located students and without the intensity promoted by real-time interaction. This means that a new and distinct approach to instruction is expected which may not conform with an instructor's prior experience. A fundamental concern on the subject of e-learning is the ability of the current generation of educators to effectively making the leap into a mode of pedagogy that was nonexistent during their years of professional education. Accordingly, Anderson explains some of the conceptual changes which face the instructor, indicating that "the teacher's role goes beyond a natural weaving of participants contributions. It is to validate the framework or matrix where student's contributions may have some connection. It is then the responsibility of the students to reflect upon this and share their insights for confirmation or extension of the knowledge framework." (Anderson, 89)

In other words, the instructor actually presides over the difficult responsibility of creating the virtual classroom. The achievement of those advantages which make the traditional classroom so ideal a forum for shared exchange and individual development must be actively established by the instructor, whose methods of engaging students in critical exchange with one another will be essential thereto. As a vessel for information and expertise, and simultaneously as a catalyst to student interaction, the instructor's role in creating a fertile territory for cognitive development is central.

The discussion here above suggests that in many ways, the education sector is still in a process of refining its understanding and use of e-learning opportunities. One place to look for some perspective as well as for some proven templates for implementation is in the private sectors. We have already addressed the economic implications of e-learning as they relate to the privatization of education. However, it is also true that the discussed benefits of economic efficiency related to computer mediated instruction have been apparent to commercial organizations of a wide variety for some time. Indeed, current research indicates that "e-Learning is used across the board to support diverse organizational training goals. The training requirements that make heaviest use of e-learning include profession or industry-specific training at 74%, compliance training at 68%, and desktop application training at 66%." (Clark & Mayer, 9)

This is to indicate that training and instruction methods in profession organizations has already achieved some level of market-based mainstreaming of e-learning or distance education approaches based both on the perceived economic benefits and on the geographically changing communication and operation needs of such organizations. In this way, it also becomes apparent that this technology is ideally suited for the type of basic or continuing education that is central to professional development. Here, the nature of the business world helps to reveal the real practical and economic conditions that are positively met by e-learning strategies. Professional training, like most other aspects of the commercial world today, is increasingly being impacted by the conditions of globalization. The thrust toward trade liberalization has contributed to a greater diversity within facilities, a need to reach beyond physical facilities in a real-time context and the need to unify the often disparately located strands of a multi-front or even multinational company. Given the already complex implications of effectively training a staff, the value of technological solutions to these new dilemmas cannot be over-calculated. To the research conducted here, computer mediated interaction often denotes the difference between mere training and actual learning. This is because, as Rosenberg's (2000) text denotes, "learning and training are often though of as synonymous; they are not. Training is the way instruction is conveyed; it supports learning, which is our internal way of processing information into knowledge. Bus since there are many ways we can learn, an effective learning strategy must transcend training." (Rosenberg, 4) It is here that we look to computing technologies as a way to enhance training methods to the end of promoting learning.

In particular, Rosenberg dedicates sufficient attention to the idea that electronic technologies are foundational to the learning needs that are likely to be demonstrated by today's employee. One impact of a 'shrinking global village,' as it were, is the sense that individual employees are expected to act with greater scheduling autonomy and flexibility. The premise that telecommunication and computer technologies make one reachable anywhere and at anytime, as well as the global economic conditions which have spread out the physical proximity of key personnel for many organizations, indicates that training can no longer be bound to disruptive specificities of time and space. This is to say that, instead, if training is to achieve that prospect of promoting actual learning, it must conform to and accommodate the complex scheduling demands and autonomy expectations of the modern professional. As Rosenberg notes with respect to instruction and information for professional development, "widely distributed employees who are busier than ever are calling for delivery solutions that meet their needs and time frames. Learning must be available on a 24/7 clock, with delivery to the office, home, and hotel room. Time is emerging as a critical factor in learning. Employees want and need to learn according to their schedule, not the schedule of the training organization." (Rosenberg, 7)