Online Learning Is an Exciting New Platform

Online learning is an exciting new platform that can make education accessible for millions of individuals. If offers flexibility in instruction that will never be paralleled in traditional education. However there are also many challenges that students must overcome to be successful online students. One of these challenges is the ability to communicate with different IT platforms. The technology is developing rapidly and there are now more options for communication than ever before.

However, none of these technologies offer the same kind of advantages that an individual gain by communicating in a face-to-face setting. This paper will briefly introduce some of the issues that present in the communication capabilities that are found in an online education. The ability to communicate directly with the teacher and the other students is one of the most fundamental benefits of a traditional structure in education.

Students may feel disconnected from the class and the material that is covered if they cannot interact with the other members of the class and they are not receiving feedback or adequate attention to address concerns. Theoretically it could be argued that there could be no upper limit for the size of the class in an online classroom setting. For example, a million students could all watch the same online lecture without degrading the content. However the limiting factor is definitely the ability to communicate and receive personalized attention.

According to Tomei, distance learning courses should have the same kind of requirements for student numbers as classes that are not conducted in a classroom setting to ensure that this can happen (Tomei, 2006). Thus one of the primary concerns with communication in the online education system is the frequency and personalized consideration of the individual students. The quality of the message is also important as well and the extent to which it conveys information.

In the traditional classroom setting it is possible to pick up on body language and other informal cues that are difficult to detect digitally. The online capabilities for education have developed rapidly however. At first there were only email and forum capabilities. However, as technology has continued to develop there are even more options for communication that were not available before.

The emerging multimedia opportunities can add a new dimension to the curriculum and offer the student new platforms for communication that allow them to engage with the subject or the person in new ways. Yet even though the multimedia experience is getting better, the limiting factor again will be the ability to provide personalized communications. Personalized communication is critical to recruitment, engagement, and retention of online students; and in one study by Drexel University indicated that the more personalized the online educational environment is for students, the more.